Who is the Department of Mechanical Engineering?

Meet Professor Louis Whitcomb:
Submerged in Robotics

“I build robots that allow us to work in extreme environments—to perform tasks that we humans otherwise cannot do and to go places we otherwise cannot go.

“If I'm told, ‘you can't put your finger there’ or ‘it is inaccessible,’ that's where I want to go.  When we are remote-controlling a robot vehicle six kilometers deep on the ocean floor, or precisely probing the depths of the human ear, our robots enable us to be there.  In the zone.  It is very exciting.”

Louis Whitcomb, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, along with his graduate students and collaborators at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is developing innovative navigation control software that will maneuver a deep submersible craft, the Hybrid Remotely Operated Vehicle (HROV). The HROV is scheduled to become operational in 2007 and will be used both autonomously and via a fiber-optic communications tether to explore the Marianas Trench.