Autonomous, Continuous, and Ubiquitous Coastal and Ocean Mapping: A Research Opportunity Invitation to UNH CCOM

John Hersey
SURVICE Engineering Company
Thursday, Jun. 30, 2011, 2:00pm
Chase 130
Abstract

The SURVICE Engineering Company is a new Corporate Partner of the University of New Hampshire Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping (CCOM), having recently joined the UNH CCOM Industrial Consortium. SURVICE is looking to support research projects and is interested in joint efforts to explore the capabilities of its new technology called ARGUS™ (Autonomous Remote Global Underwater Surveillance).    http://argus.survice.com 

ARGUS is a nautical charting tool installed on multiple small vessels to continuously and autonomously measure and transmit water level, vessel ID, and location – typically once every 2-3 seconds. These data are stored onboard, and offloaded to a SURVICE data server periodically when a WiFi connection is available. With initial support from a NOAA SBIR program, SURVICE developed ARGUS to monitor the condition and depth of dredged shipping channels. With subsequent internal R&D, SURVICE extended ARGUS capabilities. Data have already been continuously collected on coastal and inland waterways on the Eastern Seaboard and Gulf Coast, including over five million soundings of water depth and surge, as well as selected water quality and environmental parameters and meteorological data. 

Two ARGUS units are scheduled for installation on CCOM research vessels:  the R/V Cocheco and R/VCoastal Surveyor. CCOM researchers will have access to the continuously collected, highly localized (space and time), very-fine-scale data from these vessels for a variety of research efforts.

This presentation will discuss possible ways that CCOM and SURVICE can collaborate, including data collection, algorithm development, data analysis, cell-by-cell hi-res storm and flooding model validation, and data visualization. Additionally, potential joint proposal efforts will be discussed, including the SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) and STTR (Small Business Technology Transfer) programs.