New AUV designed for lake environment monitoring

Author

Kumagai, Michio ; Ura, Tamaki ; Kuroda, Yoji ; Walker, Ross

Author_Institution

Lake Biwa Res. Inst., Otsu, Japan

fYear

2000

fDate

2000

Firstpage

78

Lastpage

83

Abstract

We have developed an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), which can be used for lake environment monitoring. The length of the AUV is 2 m, its weight in air is 180 kg, and its maximum speed in water is 2 knots. It has two major missions: one is to monitor plankton distribution in the epilimnion by using its on-board submersible microscope, and the other is to monitor water quality in the benthic boundary layer by using a CTD instrument equipped with multiple sensors. The obtained data and images are transmitted to a surface research vessel (R/V) by ultrasonic waves, and subsequently transferred from the R/V to our base institute (Lake Biwa Research Institute) by a satellite mobile phone data link. We are expecting that this AUV will contribute to solving serious problems occurring in Lake Biwa such as cyanobacteria blooms in the epilimnion, and oxygen depletion in the benthic boundary

Keywords

hydrological equipment; lakes; remotely operated vehicles; underwater vehicles; 180 kg; 2 m; AUV; CTD instrument; Lake Biwa; autonomous underwater vehicle; benthic boundary layer; cyanobacteria blooms; epilimnion; lake environment monitoring; on-board submersible microscope; oxygen depletion; plankton distribution; satellite mobile phone data link; water quality; Instruments; Lakes; Marine vegetation; Microscopy; Mobile handsets; Monitoring; Satellites; Surface waves; Testing; Underwater vehicles;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Underwater Technology, 2000. UT 00. Proceedings of the 2000 International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Tokyo

Print_ISBN

0-7803-6378-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/UT.2000.852519

Filename

852519