Micro-Camera for oceanographic properties and shallow water hydrography

The very shallow water and surf zone is a highly dynamic environment and the ever-changing morphology makes wave, current, and surf forecasting difficult if not impossible. These characteristics also are critical factors that govern future evolution or erosion of the coastal environment. The ability to forecast these changes is critical for naval operations in the littoral but is also important to ocean engineers and communities that are located along coastlines. An inexpensive and rapid technique to monitor coastal conditions would be valuable to both military and civilian planners. We have proposed a solution using of a small, inexpensive Micro-Camera sensing system composed of a camera logger with GPS and inertial embedded meta-data that can be installed and operated on small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. This system can provide a mosaic of images through very accurate geo-rectification without use of ground/ocean surface based landmarks. Under the Phase II effort, we shall deliver a Micro-Camera payload and Ground Station suitable for installation on a small UAV such as AeroVironment’s Puma. We shall perform flight tests to demonstrate the ability to accurately estimate wave characteristics and infer water depths in shallow waters from the georeferenced Micro-Camera imagery.