Vicksburg is a river city. For 200 years, the ebb and flow of the waters of the Mississippi, Yazoo and Big Black rivers have influenced the culture, economics and landscape of the area.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) recognized the importance of these waters early on and has been a constant mainstay of the community with both the Mississippi Valley Division and the Vicksburg District calling Vicksburg home. Following the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, a national hydraulic laboratory was established to study the Mississippi River in hopes of mitigating future flooding, and Vicksburg was chosen as the best site for the new Waterways Experiment Station (WES).

Seventy years later, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s (ERDC) headquarters was established on the historic WES campus.

“The Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory (CHL) is the reason ERDC is actually in Vicksburg today,” CHL Director Dr. Ty Wamsley said. “We are the original laboratory.”

ERDC currently consists of seven laboratories across three states and provides solutions to the nation’s toughest military and civil works challenges. A part of the ERDC, CHL addresses an entire spectrum of water resource challenges in groundwater, watersheds, rivers, reservoirs, estuaries, harbors, coastal inlets and wetlands.

Recently, CHL researchers held a demonstration of their Scalable Autonomous Modular Propulsion kits for coastal and riverine Operational Logistics, or SAMPOL, along the Yazoo River Diversion Canal.

“This has been a collaborative effort that included our USACE partners at the Mississippi Valley Division and the Vicksburg District, the U.S. Coast Guard, industry and academia,” said Wamsley.

SAMPOL is a U.S. Transportation Command project that transforms standard barges into self-propelled, autonomous platforms capable of delivering fuel and supplies across challenging terrain to troops, aircraft and other assets. The kits are shipped in one container enabling the delivery and storage of supplies throughout the theater.

“Vicksburg is a unique location for this type of work,” said Wamsley. “We’ve got the Mississippi River, the Yazoo River and the Big Black River in our backyard, giving us several inland riverine systems of various sizes that we can leverage.”

For the demonstration, the ERDC team fitted a WWII-era barge provided by the Vicksburg District with the SAMPOL system. The barge then made its way up and down the Yazoo River Diversion Canal, demonstrating how the technology maneuvers around other vessels and shallow flats. The team also performed a raft application, showing how the technology can move from shore-to-shore.

“Turning a WWII-era barge into a scalable, autonomous watercraft is truly remarkable,” said Rear Adm. Chris Stone, Director of Strategic Plans, Policy, Logistics, and Warfighting Development, USTRANSCOM. “This collaborative research not only strengthens logistical flexibility but also paves the way for a new era of efficiency and resilience in support of our joint forces.”

“The power that really makes it happen is bringing in all the best people and collaborators,” Wamsley said. “Bringing all these folks together with the additional expertise and access to resources is important from a strategic sense, not just for our military mission, but for our civil works mission, as well.”

The SAMPOL system offers multiple benefits for military operations, including reduced transportation costs, minimized personnel and equipment risk, significantly improved processing capabilities and stronger protection for the supply chain. ERDC is also exploring how this technology could be leveraged to support civil works projects across the nation’s waterways.

“I’m really excited about the great things we’re going to be able to do in the future by bringing together all these great people to do great things in this great location,” Wamsley said.