Team-built rover that autonomously locates a thermal source and places a target object on it, modelling a real underwater maintenance problem: finding a heat signature on a submerged structure and delivering a component to it with no operator in the loop.

Heat sensing runs on a low-resolution thermal camera, giving a coarse temperature image of the scene rather than a single-point reading. This lets the rover follow a thermal gradient toward the source instead of executing a blind search pattern. Once the source is localized, the rover drives to a fixed standoff distance and a servo-actuated placement mechanism sets the object down on the target.

Development and testing were done as a dry-lab analog using heated targets, which isolates the autonomy and manipulation problem from the waterproofing and buoyancy work a fielded version would require.