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An Autonomous Solar-Powered Marine Robotic Observatory for Permanent Monitoring of Large Areas of Shallow Water

Apart from their ecological value, the world’s oceans are among the planet’s most valuable resources, a rich source of food and wealth and in urgent need of protection. This article describes BUSCAMOS-RobObs, a robot-based observatory, consisting of an autonomous solar-powered marine robot with spec...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: González-Reolid, I., Molina-Molina, J. Carlos, Guerrero-González, A., Ortiz, F. J., Alonso, D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6210960/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30336566
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s18103497
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author González-Reolid, I.
Molina-Molina, J. Carlos
Guerrero-González, A.
Ortiz, F. J.
Alonso, D.
author_facet González-Reolid, I.
Molina-Molina, J. Carlos
Guerrero-González, A.
Ortiz, F. J.
Alonso, D.
author_sort González-Reolid, I.
collection PubMed
description Apart from their ecological value, the world’s oceans are among the planet’s most valuable resources, a rich source of food and wealth and in urgent need of protection. This article describes BUSCAMOS-RobObs, a robot-based observatory, consisting of an autonomous solar-powered marine robot with specialized sensing systems designed to carry out long-term observation missions in the inland sea of the Mar Menor in southeastern Spain. This highly specialised device is unique because it has the capacity to anchor itself to the seabed and become a “buoy”, either to take measurements at specific points or to recharge its batteries. It thus avoids drifting and possible accidents in the buoy mode, especially near the coast, and resumes monitoring tasks when the required energy levels are reached. The robot is equipped with a broad range of sensors, including side scan sonar, sub-bottom sonar, laser systems, ultrasound sonar, depth meters, a multi-parametric probe and a GPS, which can collect georeferenced oceanic data. Although various types of autonomous vehicles have been described in the literature, they all have limited autonomy (even in the long term) as regards operational time and covering the seabed. The article describes a permanent monitoring mission in the Mar Menor, with a combination of solar energy and a decision-making strategy as regards the optimum route to be followed. The energy and mission simulation results, as well as an account of actual monitoring missions are also included.
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spelling pubmed-62109602018-11-02 An Autonomous Solar-Powered Marine Robotic Observatory for Permanent Monitoring of Large Areas of Shallow Water González-Reolid, I. Molina-Molina, J. Carlos Guerrero-González, A. Ortiz, F. J. Alonso, D. Sensors (Basel) Article Apart from their ecological value, the world’s oceans are among the planet’s most valuable resources, a rich source of food and wealth and in urgent need of protection. This article describes BUSCAMOS-RobObs, a robot-based observatory, consisting of an autonomous solar-powered marine robot with specialized sensing systems designed to carry out long-term observation missions in the inland sea of the Mar Menor in southeastern Spain. This highly specialised device is unique because it has the capacity to anchor itself to the seabed and become a “buoy”, either to take measurements at specific points or to recharge its batteries. It thus avoids drifting and possible accidents in the buoy mode, especially near the coast, and resumes monitoring tasks when the required energy levels are reached. The robot is equipped with a broad range of sensors, including side scan sonar, sub-bottom sonar, laser systems, ultrasound sonar, depth meters, a multi-parametric probe and a GPS, which can collect georeferenced oceanic data. Although various types of autonomous vehicles have been described in the literature, they all have limited autonomy (even in the long term) as regards operational time and covering the seabed. The article describes a permanent monitoring mission in the Mar Menor, with a combination of solar energy and a decision-making strategy as regards the optimum route to be followed. The energy and mission simulation results, as well as an account of actual monitoring missions are also included. MDPI 2018-10-17 /pmc/articles/PMC6210960/ /pubmed/30336566 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s18103497 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
González-Reolid, I.
Molina-Molina, J. Carlos
Guerrero-González, A.
Ortiz, F. J.
Alonso, D.
An Autonomous Solar-Powered Marine Robotic Observatory for Permanent Monitoring of Large Areas of Shallow Water
title An Autonomous Solar-Powered Marine Robotic Observatory for Permanent Monitoring of Large Areas of Shallow Water
title_full An Autonomous Solar-Powered Marine Robotic Observatory for Permanent Monitoring of Large Areas of Shallow Water
title_fullStr An Autonomous Solar-Powered Marine Robotic Observatory for Permanent Monitoring of Large Areas of Shallow Water
title_full_unstemmed An Autonomous Solar-Powered Marine Robotic Observatory for Permanent Monitoring of Large Areas of Shallow Water
title_short An Autonomous Solar-Powered Marine Robotic Observatory for Permanent Monitoring of Large Areas of Shallow Water
title_sort autonomous solar-powered marine robotic observatory for permanent monitoring of large areas of shallow water
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6210960/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30336566
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s18103497
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