Carderock's NEEC Partnership Connects Embry-Riddle Students to Navy Maritime Robotics

Carderock's NEEC Partnership Connects Embry-Riddle Students to Navy Maritime Robotics

By Alisha Tyer, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division Public Affairs

When someone falls overboard, locating them quickly can mean the difference between life and death. At Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, engineering students are exploring how uncrewed aerial and surface vehicles could work together to support maritime search-and-rescue operations.

Their work is part of the Naval Engineering Education Consortium, an initiative connecting universities with Navy-relevant engineering challenges and career opportunities. Through its involvement in the consortium, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division helps strengthen the connection between academic research, the Navy's technical needs and the development of its future engineering workforce.

At Embry-Riddle, that connection is taking shape through the university's Navy-focused robotic capstone projects, a three-year effort to develop cooperative uncrewed systems capable of supporting man-overboard search-and-rescue missions.

Professor Monica Garcia leads the effort, which builds on Embry-Riddle's two-semester mechanical engineering robotic systems senior design program. Students work through the engineering process, from identifying customer requirements to designing, developing and testing their systems. The Navy-focused projects introduce students to maritime robotics challenges and technologies they might not otherwise encounter in their undergraduate coursework.

"Beyond technical skills, I hope students gain the critical thinking, independence, and confidence to tackle complex, real-world challenges and excel in their future careers," Garcia said.

During the program's first year, 12 students participated in two capstone teams and a graduate research project. Their work focused on developing foundational capabilities for a larger system that would eventually allow different types of uncrewed vehicles to work cooperatively during search-and-rescue missions.

One team, MOB-AIR, focuses on sensing capabilities for an uncrewed aerial vehicle, while the second, MOB-SEA, centers on the development of an uncrewed surface vessel, including its hardware, sensing systems and autonomous capabilities. A separate graduate research effort examined cooperative search behaviors through simulation.

For Garrison Ottolini, a 2025-26 MOB-SEA team member, developing waterproofing solutions for the vessel's internal electrical systems offered practical experience with the challenges of maritime engineering.

"The project provided me with valuable practical skills and gave me a deeper understanding of the engineering challenges involved in developing reliable maritime systems," Ottolini said.

As the project progresses into its second year, students are building on those foundational efforts while learning how their individual contributions fit into a larger engineering system.

"I think the most valuable part of this project has been learning how to work on one small piece of a much larger system," said Nadia Krueger, a 2026-27 MOB-AIR team member. "It reminds me a lot of how engineering often works in the real world, where you specialize in a component but still have to understand how your part fits into the whole system."

Garcia said that kind of collaboration is an important part of preparing students for future engineering careers.

"Just as importantly, students gain experience working within a larger, systems-level team, where effective communication and coordination across different groups are essential to solving complex, real-world problems," she said.

The program's workforce-development impact is already extending beyond the classroom, including opportunities directly connected to Carderock.

Two students secured full-time Navy-related employment opportunities. Unmanned Surface Vehicle Squadron One at Naval Base Ventura County in Port Hueneme, California, selected one student to support the testing and integration of uncrewed surface vessels into the fleet.

Carderock extended a full-time employment offer to another student, Timothy Mascal-deferred until he completes his master's degree-after he finished his third internship with the division in summer 2026. His assignment with the Unmanned Surface Vessels and Controls Engineering group in the Combatant Craft Division reflects the connection between the university's maritime robotics research and engineering work supporting the Navy.

With an anticipated 30 to 45 students participating over three years, the Embry-Riddle effort demonstrates how university partnerships through the consortium can expose students to Navy-relevant technical challenges while helping develop a workforce prepared to address them.

For Krueger, that experience has already influenced her career interests.

"So far, this experience has definitely made me more interested in a Navy- or defense-related career, because I've found that I really enjoy working on a project where the results actually determine people's safety," she said.