Micro-Camera for oceanographic properties and shallow water hydrography

Littoral METOC products are required for planning efficient and safe expeditionary warfare operations in the littorals. Present Navy programs are addressing long- and medium-term solutions for acquiring these products, but these solutions require modest-size or larger theater or national systems to collect the data that are a necessary input to the algorithms that are used to generate the requisite environmental products. There is a need for data collection systems that can be deployed on small Tactical UAVs. To this end, Areté proposes to design two integrated hardware and software systems and demonstrate the feasibility of conducting METOC missions using: 1. a small, lightweight, low power sensor system employing an electronic gimbal concept for use on very small UAV Class I platforms and 2. a miniature gimbaled imaging system for use on small UAV Class II platforms. The missions will be directed at retrieving water depths (other Very Shallow Water (VSW) and Surf Zone (SZ) parameters can follow subsequently) by using time series imaging of shoaling waves.