Geological Society of America

52 Techniques and Applications to Sea Floor Mapping

Friday, 26 March 2004
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM

THE SEABED AUV, A PLATFORM FOR HIGH RESOLUTION COASTAL IMAGING

Paper number: 52-5
Program: THEME SESSIONS
Time: 2:20 PM – 2:40 PM

Authors

Hanumant Singh Presenting Author
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA
Ali Can
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA
Ryan Eustice
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA
Oscar Pizarro
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA
Christopher Roman
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA

Abstract

The Seabed Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) is a hover-capable vehicle that has been designed to perform high resolution optical and acoustic sensing surveys. Its sensor suite includes a 12bit 1280x1024 monochrome or color CCD camera, a MST 300 kHz sidescan sonar, a 675kHz pencil-beam bathymetric sonar, a Seabird conductivity and temperature sensor, RDI ADCP and an Acoustic Modem.

Seabed has been designed for operations from small vessels with minimal support equipment. It has an operational depth of 2000 meters and at 1 m/s can run for up to 10 hours and survey 36 km per mission.

In this talk we will highlight the vehicle's capabilities with data obtained in separate cruises for microhabitat characterization off Stellwagen Bank in the Northeastern US and in coral surveys off of Puerto Rico and the USVI.