June 2026

Two AUVs Navigate Cooperatively While Submerged

Two Spurdog AUVs operated fully submerged at the same time on the Charles River, exchanging live inter-vehicle acoustic ranges and building a joint factor graph online to reach roughly 1.3 m of terminal position error in a GNSS-denied environment.

Two Spurdog AUVs staged on the dock before a cooperative navigation mission

May 2026

Website Launch

The Spurdog project website and collaborator portal are now live.

Retro 1990s illustration of a kid surfing the internet on a keyboard atop a globe

January 2026

Vehicle Tested to 400 Meters

Vehicle design updated and tested to 400 meters depth at DeepTech at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Spurdog AUV prepared for pressure-vessel testing at WHOI

October 2025

ASV-Aided AUV Navigation at IROS 2025

A field study on the Charles River demonstrated autonomous surface vehicles acting as mobile acoustic references to bound the drift of a submerged Spurdog, presented at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2025.

Cooperative localization filter estimates on the SOUR-MYLO field mission
Cooperative localization estimates across filter types on the SOUR-MYLO field mission.

September 2025

Toroidal Propeller Study at OCEANS 2025

A study characterizing 3D-printed toroidal propellers against conventional OpenProp designs on the Spurdog platform, measured at the MIT Sea Grant tow tank, was presented at OCEANS 2025.

3D-printed toroidal and conventional propellers tested for the Spurdog AUV

September 2024

Modular Trident Tailcone at OCEANS 2024

The Trident series of tailcones — a modular, field-configurable three-axis aft section fielded across multiple AUV platforms — was presented at OCEANS 2024 in Halifax.

Labeled diagram of the Trident tailcone aft section
The Trident aft section and its modular subsystems.

September 2024

Spurdog Platform Paper at IEEE/OES AUV 2024

The Spurdog AUV — a low-cost, field-configurable platform built from commercial and 3D-printed parts — was introduced at the IEEE/OES Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Symposium (AUV) 2024.

A Spurdog AUV on the dock at the MIT Sailing Pavilion

April 30, 2024

First Flight

Spurdog's first deployment and swim test.