Joseph A. Curcio

Research Engineer

Room 5-214
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge MA 02139-4307
Phone: 617-253-5305
Fax: 617-253-2350
Email: curcio@mit.edu

Bio:
Mr. Curcio received his Master’s of Engineering and Master’s of Science in Ocean Engineering and Ocean Systems Management from MIT in 1995. His Master’s thesis addressed the concept of remote monitoring of the benthic marine environment using robotic camera systems. While working at the MIT Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Lab, Mr. Curcio participated in the design, development and deployment of early Odyssey class AUVs and led a team in the design and development of CETUS, the world’s first production level Autonomous Underwater Vehicle capable of hovering and station-keeping. (Story published in Sea Technology, December 1998)

Prior to pursuing his graduate studies at MIT, Mr. Curcio worked aboard several large sailing vessels including two of the historic J-Class yachts. As engineer aboard Endeavour and Shamrock V (5), Mr. Curcio honed his problem solving skills and gained substantial practical experience designing and improving electro-mechanical systems subjected to the harshest of marine conditions. He was recently awarded US Patent Number 6,414,629 for the development of a GPS based tracking system intended for locating persons lost at sea and looks forward to the day that this system is responsible for saving lives. See Outside Magazine, March 2007 issue.

Over the past few years, Mr. Curcio has been working with Professor John Leonard at MIT Department of Ocean Engineering. Most recently, he has been working on the development of a low cost, reliable autonomous surface platform suitable for a wide variety of applications in the marine environment - SCOUT (Surface Craft for Oceanographic and Undersea Testing). Ongoing research includes software development in adaptive behavior with multiple vehicles in order to address the COLREGS (Collision prevention) requirements while operating autonomous and robotic vehicles. This work is being performed in conjunction with Michael Benjamin at MIT.

Education:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Master of Science in Ocean Systems Management, 1995.
Master of Engineering in Ocean Engineering, 1995.

University of Vermont, Burlington, VT
Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, 1985.

Professional Experience:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ocean Engineering. 2003 - present.
Research Engineer: Project management, design, development and operation of Autonomous Surface Craft.

Joseph A. Curcio & Associates. 1999 - present.

Consultant: Project management, engineering analysis and design on a variety of marine systems.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sea Grant College Program. 1993 – 1999.

Research Engineer: Project management, design and development of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.

J-Class Management, Newport, Rhode Island. 1991 – 1993.

Engineer: J-Class sloops Endeavour and Shamrock-V servicing and maintaining all shipboard equipment.

Parker-Hannifin Corporation, Nichols Motor Division, Gray, Maine. 1989 – 1991.
Applications Engineer: Hydraulic motors, pumps and operating systems.

Kelsey-Hayes Company, Romulus, Michigan. 1985 – 1988.
Product and Sales Engineer: Automotive brake systems and electro-mechanical sensors.

Selected Publications:

1. Don Eickstedt, Michael Benjamin, Ding Wang, Henrik Schmidt, Joseph Curcio, “Behavior Based Adaptive Control for Autonomous Oceanographic Sampling” to appear, International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Rome, Italy, April 2007.

2. Willcox, S., Goldberg, D., Vaganay, J., Curcio, J., “Multi-Vehicle Cooperative Navigation and Autonomy with the Bluefin CADRE System”, in Proceedings of IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, 20-22 Sept, 2006. (pdf)

3. Curcio, J., McGillivary, P., Fall, K., Maffei, A., Schwehr, K., Twiggs, B., Kitts, C., Ballou, P., “Self-Positioning Smart Buoys, The “Un-Buoy” Solution: Logistic Considerations using Autonomous Surface Craft Technology and Improved Communications Infrastructure,” in Proceedings of IEEE Oceans 2006, pages 1-5 ,September 2006. (pdf)

4. Benjamin, M., Curcio, J., Leonard, J., Newman, P., “Protocol-Based COLREGS Collision Avoidance Navigation Between Unmanned Marine Surface Craft,” Journal of Field Robotics, Vol 23, No. 5, May 2006. (pdf)

5. Benjamin, M., Curcio, J., Leonard, J., Newman, P., “Navigation of Unmanned Marine Vehicles in Accordance with the Rules of the Road,” International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Orlando, FL, pages 3581-3587, May 2006. (pdf)

6. Curtin, T., Crimmins, D., Curcio, J., Benjamin, M., Roper, C., “Autonomous Underwater Vehicles: Trends and Transformations,” The Marine Technology Society Journal, vol. 39, no. 3, pages 65-75, Fall 2005. (pdf)

7. Curcio, J., Leonard, J., Vaganay, J., Patrikalakis, A., Bahr, A., Battle, D., Schmidt, H., Grund, M., “Experiments in Moving Baseline Navigation using Autonomous Surface Craft”, in Proceedings of MTS/IEEE Oceans 2005, pages 730-735 vol.1, September 2005. (pdf)

8. Curcio, J., Leonard, J., Patrikalakis, A., “SCOUT – A Low Cost Autonomous Surface Craft for Research in Cooperative Autonomy”, in Proceedings of MTS/IEEE Oceans 2005, pages 725-729 vol. 1, September 2005. (pdf)

9. Vaganay, J., Leonard, J., Curcio, J., Willcox, S., “Experimental Validation of Moving Long-Baseline Concept”, AUV 2004 IEEE/OES, pages 59-65, June 2004. (pdf)

10. Benjamin, M.R., Curcio, J.A., “COLREGS-Based Navigation in Unmanned Marine Vehicles”, AUV 2004 IEEE/OES, pages 32-39, June 2004. (pdf)

11. Curcio, J.A., Bellingham, J.G., Hover, F.S., “CETUS: Design of a production AUV,” Sea Technology, Vol. 39, No. 12, December, 1998. (pdf)

12. Lemoine, P.J., Marcus, H.S., Curcio, J. A., “Improving Performance in the Navy’s Acquisition Process Through the Improved Use of Teams”, Journal of Ship Production, Volume 13, No. 4, November 1997.

Affiliations:
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers
Marine Technology Society