Under the Antarctic Ice Planned Missions by an AUV

 

26 February 2010 Melbourne Lunch and Learn Meeting

Chairman Christopher Lee, Worley Parsons

 

Report

 

Flyer

 

Presentations

Use of an Explorer Class Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Missions under Sea Ice

Professor Neil Bose, Director, AMC – National Centre for Maritime Engineering and Hydrodynamics

The autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) operations described in this presentation are preparatory missions to enable operation of an AUV under sea in polar regions. The polar projects have included operations under land-fast ice in the Arctic through an ice moon pool and a planned project to assess sea ice mass balance and habitat assessment in the Southern Ocean in East Antarctica.

The talk focused on the preparatory missions done in open water, and the planned Southern Ocean project. The plan is to use an AUV for the under ice component of measurements. The ultimate goals are to: 

• Quantify the size and shape of ridge keel structures and their condition to the sea ice mass balance over a study region
• Understand the processes that link sea ice with distribution of ice algae and krill
• Provide the necessary field measurements, over sufficiently large areas, for the calibration/validation of satellite-based measurements of sea ice thickness for future climate monitoring.