Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) has chosen a professor from Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences (VIMS) as the first winner of ‘Member of the Year’ award. Professor Mark Patterson is the director of the Autonomous Systems laboratory at VIMS.
Professor Mark Patterson of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science is the inaugural winner of the AUVSI “Member of the Year” award
The award is given to an AUVSI member who has shown exceptional dedication in providing innovative unmanned systems in the industry or in member recruitment or in both. Wendy Siminski, the director of development at AUVSI, lauded the efforts of Patterson towards the development of unmanned-systems. The award ceremony was conducted at the time of the yearly international meeting of AUVSI in Washington on August 17, 2011.
AUVSI boasts of having participation from 55 countries, 2,200 corporate partners and over 6,000 individual members. Patterson has been instrumental in developing autonomous underwater vehicles that are used in marine research. He owns two patents that are a testimony to the competent nature of his research. The two patents are U.S. Patent No. 5,995,882 for the robotic sub Fetch and the patent No. 7,221,621 for neural network software which is capable of finding fish with the help of a sidescan sonar. Fetch is the first ever swimming supercomputer, which has swum on numerous research missions to far away and near-by locations. Apart from his achievements in research activities, Patterson has also made significant contributions to education and outreach. He has been involved in organising and hosting the acclaimed International RoboBoat Competition, which encourages university and undergraduate students to design robotic boats that cruise through water based obstacles. The competition is sponsored by the AUVSI and the Office of Naval Research.