Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and investigations of the ice-ocean interface in Antarctic and Arctic waters

Dowdeswell, JA, Evans, J, Mugford, R, Griffiths, G, McPhail, S, Millard, N, Stevenson, P, Brandon, MA, Banks, C, Heywood, KJ ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9859-0026, Price, MR, Dodd, PA, Jenkins, A, Nicholls, KW, Hayes, D, Abrahamsen, EP, Tyler, P, Bett, B, Jones, D, Wadhams, P, Wilkinson, JP, Stansfield, K and Ackley, S (2008) Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and investigations of the ice-ocean interface in Antarctic and Arctic waters. Journal of Glaciology, 54 (187). pp. 661-672. ISSN 1727-5652

Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)

Abstract

Limitations of access have long restricted exploration and investigation of the cavities beneath ice shelves to a small number of drillholes. Studies of sea-ice underwater morphology are limited largely to scientific utilization of submarines. Remotely operated vehicles, tethered to a mother ship by umbilical cable, have been deployed to investigate tidewater-glacier and ice-shelf margins, but their range is often restricted. The development of free-flying autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) with ranges of tens to hundreds of kilometres enables extensive missions to take place beneath sea ice and floating ice shelves. Autosub2 is a 3600kg, 6.7m long AUV, with a 1600m operating depth and range of 400km, based on the earlier Autosub1 which had a 500m depth limit. A single direct-drive d.c. motor and five-bladed propeller produce speeds of 1-2 ms-1. Rear-mounted rudder and stern-plane control yaw, pitch and depth. The vehicle has three sections. The front and rear sections are free-flooding, built around aluminium extrusion space-frames covered with glass-fibre reinforced plastic panels. The central section has a set of carbon-fibre reinforced plastic pressure vessels. Four tubes contain batteries powering the vehicle. The other three house vehicle-control systems and sensors. The rear section houses subsystems for navigation, control actuation and propulsion and scientific sensors (e.g. digital camera, upward-looking 300kHz acoustic Doppler current profiler, 200kHz multibeam receiver). The front section contains forward-looking collision sensor, emergency abort, the homing systems, Argos satellite data and location transmitters and flashing lights for relocation as well as science sensors (e.g. twin conductivity-temperature-depth instruments, multibeam transmitter, sub-bottom profiler, AquaLab water sampler). Payload restrictions mean that a subset of scientific instruments is actually in place on any given dive. The scientific instruments carried on Autosub are described and examples of observational data collected from each sensor in Arctic or Antarctic waters are given (e.g. of roughness at the underside of floating ice shelves and sea ice).

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: sdg 14 - life below water ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/life_below_water
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (former - to 2017)
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Meteorology, Oceanography and Climate Dynamics (former - to 2017)
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Climate, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (former - to 2017)
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences
Depositing User: Rosie Cullington
Date Deposited: 25 Feb 2011 10:48
Last Modified: 20 Mar 2023 11:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/24661
DOI: 10.3189/002214308786570773

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item