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- The explosion of autonomy
in oceanography right now is really exciting
because it's going to give us the opportunity
to access more of the ocean, more frequently
than we ever have before.
- We're on the edge of this robotic revolution right now
and the ocean sciences actually employs a lot of robots.
Our mission is to develop and build the tools
that the scientists need to take the measurements
for the difficult Arctic environment.
Our idea is to develop these technologies,
use the Arctic as a test bed, prove their value,
and then transition them either to commercial industries
or to sustained research organizations that will use them.
The whole purpose of all these tools, vehicles,
and autonomy in robotic communications is for the data.
And that data is gonna serve the scientists
in a research capacity
but also serve people more in a day-to-day mission.
Food security, the weather, climate measurements,
all these things that we feel like
these robotic devices will provide value.
- My goal of the research is collecting observations
that it will help us understanding the difference
in energy exchange between water and atmosphere
and between ice and atmosphere, and will help us
understand the energy cycle in the Arctic
and also using the data to evaluate the ice forecast skills.
Sea ice forecasting is important because
many activities in the Arctic region depend on our knowledge
of where sea ice is for commercial shipping,
for safety of any kind of ship in the Arctic region.
And also people living in that area,
some of them depend on sea ice for their daily activities
so they would appreciate accurate sea ice predictions.
And the Arctic sea ice may be one factors that influence
the formation and development of polar vortex.
And on the global scale,
we need to know the sea ice coverage in order to understand
how Arctic will influence middle latitude
weather and climate.
- [Christian] Sea ice environment is very dynamic.
It's the edge of the frontier, it's always changing,
so trying to take measurements near or under the sea ice
is extremely challenging.
- [Jessica] Our job is to make sure that these technologies
are able to work in the Arctic region,
when it's cold outside, when there's ice hanging around,
when it's dark outside.
Our job is to make them as rugged as we can.
- [Christian] We've developed a broad range of technologies.
Some of the things are very big, say like the Saildrones.
- [Jessica] The drones capture over 50 different types
of parameters, that's a lot of individual data.
I break them down into three categories.
There's atmospheric data, meteorological data,
there's also surface ocean data,
the temperature and the salinity of the water
and then we also have really complex sensors.
Sensors like CO2 flux sensors
that allow us to track the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere
and in the ocean.
We also work with Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers,
ADCPs for short.
ADCPs help us measure the currents.
We also work with echo sounders.
Echo sounders use acoustic energy to ping
on things that are swimming around in the ocean.
- We've also developed an underwater glider,
profilers that harvest energy from buoys,
a profiling float that can be tossed out of airplanes.
The vehicles and the sensors and systems
that were developed will help further the research.
And out of those research products
will come peer reviewed decisions based on what's going on.
- We lose more multi-year ice in the Arctic every year.
We want to make sure that we're able to understand
as much about this very rapidly changing system as we can.
These technologies help us fill a really important void
and that could have big implications,
not just for local communities in the Arctic,
but also around the world.
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