To Boldly Dive Where No One Has Gone Before: Experiments in Coordinated Robotic Ocean Exploration

• Type: Chapter or Part of a Book
• Date: 2021-03-28

Authors

José Queirós Pinto (Author) FEUP; Maria Costa (Author) FEUP; Keila Lima (Author) FEUP; Paulo Sousa Dias (Author) FEUP; J. Pereira (Author) FEUP; Manuel Ribeiro (Author) FEUP; Renato Campos (Author) Other; Zara Mirmalek (Author) Other; Renato Mendes (Author) FEUP; Francisco López-Castejón (Author) Other; Javier Gilabert (Author) Other; Maria Tomasino (Author) Other; Catarina Magalhães (Author) Other; Jorge Estrela da Silva (Author) Other; Paulo Relvas (Author) Other; Trent Lukaczyk (Author) Other; Kay Skarpnes (Author) Other; Martin Ludvigsen (Author) Other; Alex Chekalyuk (Author) Other; Bruno Loureiro (Author) Other; Ian G. Brosnan (Author) Other; Jing Li (Author) Other; Ami Hannon (Author) Other; João Tasso Sousa (Author) FEUP; Kanna Rajan (Author) FEUP

Book

Title: Experimental Robotics - The 17th International Symposium

Pages: 472-487

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-71151-1

Indexing

Scopus - 0 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00V-126

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-71151-1_42

Abstract (EN): Study of ocean processes is important to understanding climatic variability especially on the productive upper water-column. Ocean currents regulate the climate, it captures CO2 from the atmosphere and oxygen is generated by its plankton communities, all of which are part of the global environmental cycle which are being impacted by anthropogenic change. Much of the ocean, however, remains unexplored especially the bio-geochemical processes in the water-column which need to be examined at scale. Satellite remote sensing captures only surface effects while expensive research vessels can only make discrete observations in finite periods of time. Our work with networked marine robotics in the aerial, surface and underwater domains is at the vanguard of a new approach to scientific observation, which brings together technology to enable vessels and robots to work in tandem for capturing synoptic views of open ocean phenomena. We describe a cruise in the Spring of 2018 in the open waters of the Pacific where we employed a fleet of autonomous robots for simultaneous observations of mesoscale and sub-mesoscale features of an unexplored frontal zone. We articulate our approach to multi-vehicle coordination and challenges that lie ahead for research in this harsh domain. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific