Hoover helps with unmanned kayak project to search for pollutants
Standing on the edge of Schoolhouse Pond, Chris Roman and Marcella Thompson watched as an unmanned kayak traveled back and forth across the pond in a series of calculated switchbacks. When it had completed its mission, the vessel returned to its starting point, where the two University of Rhode Island researchers were waiting.
The route the vessel took in the pond, as well in nearby Deep Pond, was a test of the unmanned kayak’s ability to independently navigate and use a system of high-tech oceanographic instruments, including side-scan sonar, to collect data about the ponds and create a map of their sediments.
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Thompson works closely on the project with co-investigators Dinalyn Spears, director of the Community Planning and Natural Resources Department for the Narragansett Tribe, Elizabeth Hoover, assistant professor of American Studies at Brown University, and fish biologist Barry Volson from URI’s Fisheries, Animal and Veterinary Sciences program.