Project Summary for 2006-05-01: AUV sea trials, training and multibeam mapping of the Oculina Bank deep water coral reef ecosystem
NURP, NURC/UNCW, the National Institute of Undersea Science and Technology (NIUST), and the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC) have joined in a partnership to design, construct, field test, and operate an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) equipped to provide high-resolution (<1 m) habitat maps of offshore seafloor habitats down to 2200 meters depth. NURC/UNCW has developed a field Testing and Evaluation (T&E) plan to enable staff expertise in the operation of the EAGLE RAY, formulation of operations and safety procedures, and system programming and functionality prior to support of full-scale operations (at-sea, full depth surveys) for peer-reviewed science. The T&E program includes four phases and a variety of tasks, partners and target dive areas.
NURC/UNCW desires to contract the NASA vessel Liberty Star or her sister ship, the Freedom Star, to support AUV field tests during 2006. Both vessels are well suited to support EAGLE RAY field tests with ample deck space, large deck crane, dynamic positioning capability, low free board, deck decompression chamber, and small chase boats. During each mission, the AUV Operations Container, the EAGLE RAY, the NURC/UNCW Phantom S2 remotely operated vehicle (ROV), and scuba equipment will be loaded on board the vessel. The NURC/UNCW Phantom S2 ROV and scuba equipment are emergency recovery equipment and will only be used if the EAGLE RAY becomes stuck on the bottom. All AUV tests will be conducted in waters shallow enough to allow use of these assets to conduct emergency recovery if necessary (40 meters for scuba and 250 meters for the ROV). Each mission will be comprised of several EAGLE RAY deployments consisting of system, navigation, and vehicle tracking/communications tests
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