A software architecture and system deploys robotic boats to study ocean surface and subsurface phenomena such as coastal pollutants, oil spills, and hurricanes.

The Tele-supervised Adaptive Ocean Sensor Fleet (TAOSF) is a multi-robot science exploration architecture and system that uses a group of robotic boats (the Ocean-Atmosphere Sensor Integration System, or OASIS) to enable in-situ study of ocean surface and subsurface characteristics and the dynamics of such ocean phenomena as coastal pollutants, oil spills, hurricanes, or harmful algal blooms (HABs). The OASIS boats are extended-deployment, autonomous ocean surface vehicles. The TAOSF architecture provides an integrated approach to multi-vehicle coordination and sliding human-vehicle autonomy.