An Embedded Cytometer for Autonomous Platforms

用于自主平台的嵌入式细胞仪

• 批准号: 2022843
• 负责人: Virginia Armbrust
• 金额: $ 123万
• 依托单位: University of Washington
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2022843&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Embedded; Cytometer; Autonomous; Platforms

The photosynthetic microbes – the phytoplankton – generate about 50% of the oxygen and organic matter produced on Earth each year and serve as the base of marine food webs. Flow cytometers are essential oceanographic instruments that rapidly and accurately measure the abundance, size and fluorescent characteristics of individual phytoplankton cells. For example, flow cytometry led to the discovery of Prochloroccocus, the most abundant photosynthetic organism on Earth. However, thirty-seven years after the first description of a flow cytometer designed specifically for the measurement of phytoplankton in the field, the complexity of flow cytometry, and the multi-parametric data it produces continues to be an obstacle to its evolution towards common use as an oceanographic field instrument. PipeCyte is a miniature, low-power flow cytometer instrument that was designed to perform autonomous measurements of 0.5-10 µm diameter phytoplankton while deployed on autonomous oceanographic measurement platforms. In this first deployment project, the PipeCyte instrument will be immersed at depths of up to 100 meters while tethered to a surface buoy. A surface buoy is a low-cost platform that is simple to deploy from a research vessel. In this project, several buoy deployed PipeCyte instruments will be released in the open ocean to perform measurements of the phytoplankton community at multiple depths. These measurements will provide an unprecedented view of the relation between environmental features and phytoplankton communities along the water column. A previously developed PipeCyte prototype will be iterated to reduce both size and power requirement through a redesign and repackaging of the custom acquisition and control circuitry. This new sub-20 watt PipeCyte V2 will be housed within a commercially available pressure housing. After instrument calibration in the lab using calibration microspheres and cultured phytoplankton, initial field testing of a float-tethered instrument will be performed in the Puget Sound. Automated data analysis methods previously developed in R for analysis of SeaFlow flow cytometer data will be ported to the PipeCyte Labview based control software so that the multi-parameter flow cytometer data can be reduced to phytoplankton population counts in realtime. This reduced data set along with GPS fix will be transmitted back to ship and shore by satellite modem. The proposed buoy-deployed instrument will be powered by four 100 W-hr lithium batteries to yield instrument on-time of approximately 50 hours per deployment. Final field testing to demonstrate proof-of-concept will occur in the sub-tropic Pacific Ocean where real-time counts of Prochlorococcus, Synechococcus and small eukaryotic phytoplankton will be broadcast to the ship.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

光合微生物 - 浮游植物 - 每年产生约50％的氧气和有机物，并充当海洋食品网的基础。流式细胞仪是必不可少的海洋学工具，可以快速，准确地测量单个浮游植物细胞的抽象，大小和荧光特征。例如，流式细胞仪导致发现了氯氯库，这是地球上最丰富的光合生物。然而，在第一个专门设计用于测量浮游植物的流式细胞仪，流式细胞仪的复杂性以及其产生的多参数数据的第一个描述后的37年，它仍然是其作为大洋学场仪器的共同使用的障碍。 PipeCyte是一种微型，低功率的流式细胞仪仪器，旨在执行直径为0.5-10 µm的自主测量，同时部署在自主海洋学测量平台上。在第一个部署项目中，管道仪器将浸入高达100米的深度，同时将其束缚在表面浮标上。表面浮标是一个低成本平台，易于从研究容器中部署。在这个项目中，将在开阔的海洋中发布几种浮标部署的管道仪器，以在多个深度对浮游植物社区进行测量。这些测量结果将为环境特征与水柱植物群社区之间的关系提供前所未有的观点。先前开发的管道原型将通过重新设计和重新包装自定义采集和控制电路来降低尺寸和功率要求。这种新的20瓦管道V2将安置在市售的压力外壳中。使用校准微球和培养的浮游植物进行仪器校准后，将在Puget Sound中进行浮子直线仪器的初始现场测试。先前在R中开发的自动数据分析方法用于分析海流流式细胞仪数据将移植到基于Pipecyte LabView的控制软件中，以便可以将多参数流式细胞仪数据减少到实时的植物浮游生物数量。该简化的数据集以及GPS修复将通过卫星调制解调器将其传输回船和岸。拟议的浮标仪器将由四个100 w-hr锂电池供电，每次部署约50小时的计算机。最终的现场测试证明了概念验证证明将发生在亚热带太平洋中，在该海洋中将广播procococcus，synechococcus和小型真核生物浮游植物的实时计数。该奖项将反映出NSF的法定任务，并通过评估了基金会的评估，反映了NSF的法定任务，并诚实地对其进行了评估。