WHOI Funding - Green 1995 Abstracts

Abstracts of 1995 Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Technology Innovation Awards

Measuring the Spatial Structure of Bottom Stress from an Underwater Vehicle
E. Terray, J. Trowbridge, and D. Yoerger

This project is evaluating techniques for measuring small-scale turbulence in bottom boundary layers from autonomous and remotely operated underwater vehicles, with the goal of generating spatial maps of bottom stress over non-uniform bathymetry.

A Self-Propelled Vertical Profiler (SPVP)
Dan Frye, Ken Doherty, and John Toole

A recently developed Moored Vertical Profiler has as its scientific focus the collection of long time series of temperature and salinity profile data in order to monitor climatic changes in the water column properties. This instrument is not presently suitable for use on surface moorings because the wave-forced dynamics may damage the motor and drive wheel. With the Green award, the principal investigators will develop the key drive mechanism that will allow an SPVP to be used on surface moorings and to extract the energy needed to profile from the wave motions. This unlimited energy source will then allow longer duration deployments and ultimately less expensive ocean monitoring.

Development of a Low-Power Sonic Anemometer to Measure Mean Wind Velocity Using Adaptive Signal Processing
James B. Edson and Alan Hinton

Using a technique based on adaptive signal processing developed by Alan Hinton during his graduate work, the principal investigators will begin to develop a highly accurate, low-power anemometer. The ultimate goal of this research is to build a low-cost anemometer that retains its accuracy over long-term deployments from buoys.

A Proposal for the Development of an Improved Longwave Radiometer
Steve Anderson and Richard Payne

The principal investigators will develop a prototype for an improved longwave radiometer for deployment on ships and buoys using current technologies including engineering plastics, such as Delryn, and stable temperature sensors. The new instrument will overcome some of the limitations of the currently available sensor and lead to a reduction in the errors in surface longwave radiation measurements.

Autonomous Tracer Injector for In Situ Rate Studies in Deep Oceanic Sediments
Craig D. Taylor, Kenneth W. Doherty, and Christopher S. Martens

The principal investigators will design and build a prototype autonomous tracer injector for performance of sediment rate studies directly in situ.

Semi-Automated Mosaicking of Digital Image Data
Jonathan Howland, Susan Humphris and Dan Potter

The Deep Submergence Laboratory has developed a digital image enhancement and mosaicking capability which is a vast improvement over darkroom hardcopy mosaicking, but it has two drawbacks. It requires an expensive special purpose image computer and the manual mosaicking procedure is extremely time-consuming and somewhat tedious. The principal investigators will develop techniques and software which will partially automate the mosaic construction process via automated image registration, and will run on off the shelf computing equipment. Such a capability will find wide scientific application in geological, physical and biological studies of the seafloor.

Development and Testing of a New Satellite Communications System
James Valdes and Breck Owens

The principal investigators will investigate the use of the developing Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications capabilities for use with autonomous vehicles that are being developed at WHOI. This addresses one of the major stumbling blocks for obtaining real-time data from oceanographic instrumentation - low throughput provided by existing systems, such as ARGOS (which is the existing satellite data telemetry system commonly used by Oceanographers). Additionally, these modern satellites should provide two-way communications with the instruments so that adaptive sampling techniques can be implemented.

An Underway Microlayer Surface Tension Device
Wade R. McGillis and Nelson M. Frew

The interpretation of surface features apparent in imagery obtained from satellite-borne radars is hampered by a lack of sea-truth measurements of surface tension. The principal investigators will develop a new device for underway measurements of the surface tension of the air-sea interface.

Continuous Video Tracking of Marine Mammals
Peter L. Tyack and William N. Lange

Analysis of marine mammal behavior is difficult because observational techniques developed for terrestrial mammals cannot be used at sea. The principal investigators have been working on an overhead video imaging technology which provides for continuous observation. They need to upgrade and field test several components of the system in order to fully prove the concept. They will configure a new stabilized video system with one wide angle camera and another camera with rapid pan/tilt/zoom suspended from a blimp.