Collaborative Research: Persistent Presence in the Ocean Interior: Developing a Low-power, Autonomous System for Geo-referenced Navigation

合作研究：海洋内部的持续存在：开发用于地理参考导航的低功耗自主系统

• 批准号: 1634298
• 负责人: Michael Jakuba
• 金额: $ 63.79万
• 依托单位: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1634298&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Persistent; Presence; Ocean

Facilitating an accurately navigated persistent presence for the interior of the deep ocean has the potential to transform how oceanography is conducted. This capability is currently not provided by existing technologies; however, if developed would transform the scope of projects undertaken by underwater vehicles with longer range and endurance than can currently be deployed unsupported from research ships. This research develops a new low power navigation system that improves navigational accuracy from 1000s of meters to 100s meters. This advance will enable multiple new lines of oceanographic investigation. Examples include deployment of coordinated glider fleets to investigate complex physical-biogeochemical interactions; deep studies of topographically induced mixing; long-range characterization of seafloor habitats/ecosystems at the scale of entire ocean basins; and better resolution of the scales of bottom-boundary-layer processes in regions with steep underwater terrain. The researchers will engage in outreach activities including undergraduate participation in our research and continuation of established collaborations with local high school robotics and environmental science classes. This research develops and tests a low-power acoustic positioning system that enables accurate externally aided navigation in the deep ocean. A glider (or fleet of gliders) operates at depth while an autonomous surface robot (ASV) follows on the sea surface. The ASV transmits its geo-reference position to the gliders at a regular interval. Each glider then independently employs a precision time base (provided by chip-scale atomic clocks) and array processing to determine its position relative to the ASV. Each ASV combines this relative position estimate with the ASV's position encoded in the received packet to compute its geo-referenced position. System performance depends on a number of factors including the precision of vehicle attitude sensors. Accuracies of 250-400m are possible at 5000m depth using low-power sensors already in use on the glider. Hence, for deep-diving gliders, this method will provide a 10-100 fold improvement in positioning accuracy over the current paradigm (i.e., infrequent GPS fixes) and would allow vehicles to spend more time at depth making relevant observations. This research will enable new operating paradigms, advance observational capabilities and facilitate spatially denser observations than were previously possible. Furthermore, the new system will also improve the ability to estimate depth-averaged ocean currents. The developed capability is also a prerequisite for coordinated motion control of multiple deep-diving AUGs, further increasing the density and cadence of deep ocean observations, providing an ever closer-to-synoptic view of the deep ocean interior. The developed system will be tested first in the tank and then in two ocean cruises including a Year 3 deployment on a Seaglider.

促进深海内部准确导航的持续存在可能会改变海洋学的进行方式。 现有技术目前尚未提供此功能；但是，如果开发将改变水下车辆范围更长和耐力的项目范围，而不是目前无法从研究船上部署的项目范围。 这项研究开发了一种新的低电力导航系统，该系统将导航准确性从1000米到100米。 这一进步将使多个新的海洋学调查线。 例子包括部署协调的滑翔机队来研究复杂的物理生物地球化学相互作用；对地形诱导的混合的深入研究；在整个海洋盆地的规模上，海底栖息地/生态系统的长期表征；以及更好地分辨出陡峭的水下地形区域的底部边界层过程的尺度。 研究人员将从事外展活动，包括本科生参与我们的研究，并继续与当地高中机器人和环境科学课程建立合作。这项研究开发和测试了低功率的声学定位系统，该系统可以在深海中进行准确的外部辅助导航。 滑翔机（或滑翔机队）的深度运行，而自动表面机器人（ASV）在海面上跟随。 ASV会定期将其地理参考位置传输到滑翔机。然后，每个滑翔机都独立使用精确的时间表（由芯片尺度原子钟提供）和数组处理以确定其相对于ASV的位置。每个ASV将此相对位置估计与在接收到的数据包中编码的ASV位置相结合，以计算其地理参考位置。系统性能取决于许多因素，包括车辆态度传感器的精度。使用滑翔机上已经使用的低功率传感器，在5000m深度时，准确性为250-400m。因此，对于深水滑翔机，此方法将在当前范式上（即不频繁的GPS修复）提供10-100倍的位置精度，并允许车辆在深度上花费更多的时间进行相关的观察。这项研究将实现新的操作范式，提高观察能力并促进与以前可能发生的空间密度观察。此外，新系统还将提高估计深度平均洋流的能力。开发的能力也是对多个深度潜水Augs的协调运动控制的先决条件，进一步增加了深海观测的密度和节奏，从而提供了深海内部的近距离观察。 开发的系统将首先在储罐中进行测试，然后在两次海洋巡游中进行测试，包括在Seaglider上的3年级部署。