During a summer internship at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Ivy Mahnke, a robotics engineering graduate student in the Olin College of Engineering, took a hands-on approach to testing algorithms for underwater navigation. He first discovered his love for working with underwater robotics as an intern at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 2024. Attracted by the opportunity to tackle new problems and develop cutting-edge algorithms, Mahnke began an internship with Lincoln Laboratory’s Advanced Undersea Systems and Technology Group in 2025.
Mahnke spent the summer developing and troubleshooting an algorithm that would help a human diver and robotic vehicle navigate collaboratively underwater. The lack of traditional localization aids in underwater environments – such as the Global Positioning System, or GPS – posed challenges to navigation, which Mahnke and his mentors tried to overcome. Their work in the laboratory culminated in field tests of the algorithm on an operational underwater vehicle. With the group’s staff at test sites in the Atlantic Ocean, the Charles River and Lake Superior, Mahnke had the opportunity to see his software in action in the real world.
“One of the lead engineers on the project had stepped aside to do other work. And he said, ‘This is my laptop. Here are the things you need to do. I trust you to do them.’ And so I had to get out on the water not only as an extra pair of hands, but as one of the key field testers,” says Mahnke. “I really felt that my supervisors saw me as the future generation of engineers at Lincoln Lab or in the broader industry.”
Madeline Miller, Mahnke’s internship supervisor, says: “Ivy’s internship coincided with a rigorous series of field tests at the end of an ambitious program. We metaphorically threw her straight into the water, and she not only swam, but played an integral role in our program’s ability to reach many of its goals.”
Lincoln Laboratory’s summer research program runs from mid-May to August. Applications are now open.
Video by Tim Briggs/MIT Lincoln Laboratory | 2 minutes 59 seconds
