Phytoplankton bloom patch center localization by the Tethys Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

The autonomous localization and tracking of the center of a phytoplankton bloom patch by the Tethys Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) is introduced. This capability is motivated by the desire to separate temporal variability from spatial variability in the observation of phytoplankton dynamics. In effect, by observing the organisms in their own reference frame, we isolate their temporal variability. The small spatial scales and the high temporal variability of phytoplankton patches make strategies that rely on human control challenging, as these strategies must contend with the high latency of intermittent low-bandwidth communications between the submerged AUV and an operator. The autonomous capabilities demonstrated here make much greater use of the responsiveness of the AUV platform to minimize the chance of losing track of the patch and maximize the rate at which the patch center is revisited.