AN EXPENDABLE OCEAN PARTICLE SIZE AND DENSITY SENSOR

DYNAMICS TECHNOLOGY, INC. (DTI) PROPOSES TO DEVELOP AN EXPENDABLE PARTICLE SENSOR (XPS) THAT IS CAPABLE OF ESTIMATING BOTH THE DENSITY AND SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF SUSPENDED PARTICLES IN OCEAN WATER BY MEASURING BOTH THE DISTRIBUTION OF NEAR FORWARD SCATTERED LIGHT AND THE TOTAL BEAM ATTENUATION. THE UNIT EMPLOYS BASIC OPTICS, A LED AND A DETECTOR ARRAY. THE SCATTERED LIGHT IS OPTICALLY TRANSFORMED TO PROVIDE A SPATIAL MAP OF THE ANGULAR SCATTERING INTENSITY DISTRIBUTION. THE DETECTED INTENSITY DISTRIBUTION CAN THEN BE INVERTED TO YIELD INFORMATION ON THE PARTICLE SIZE DENSITY BASED ON BOTH THE DIFFRACTION APPROXIMATION TO MIE SCATTERING APPLIED IN THE NEAR-FORWARD REGION AND EMPIRICAL RELATIONSHIP. THE PROPOSED XPS SYSTEM IS COMPACT, HAS LOW POWER CONSUMPTION, IS LOW COST, AND IS CAPABLE OF CONTINUOUS PROFILING OF THE WATER COLUMN. THE INVERSION TECHNIQUES TO BE APPLIED TO THIS SPECIFIC TYPE OF MEASUREMENT WILL BE ASSESSED THROUGH COMPUTER SIMULATION AND A PROTOTYPE WILL BE CONSTRUCTED IN PHASE I. THIS ANALYSIS WILL IDENTIFY CRITICAL DESIGN AND INTERPRETATION ISSUES FOR PHASE II.