AUTONOMOUS OCEANOGRAPHIC SAMPLING NETWORK

FOR FOUR DIMENSIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC SAMPLING WITH INITIAL APPLICATION TO THE ARCTIC, AN AUTONOMOUS OCEANOGRAPHIC SAMPLING NETWORK (AOSN) IS PROPOSED. EACH NETWORK NODE IS A LOCAL VOLUME SAMPLING SYSTEM (LOVSS)CONSISTING OF A BASE BUOY AND A NUMBER OF AUTONOMOUS OCEANOGRAPHIC VEHICLES (AOV'S) AT FIXED LEVELS (ISOBARIC OR ISOPYCNAL). THE BASE BUOY SERVES AS A NAVIGATION BEACON, ENERGY SOURCE, TELEMETRY LINK AND SURFACE SENSOR PLATFORM. EACH AOV FUNCTIONS AS A SUBSURFACE SENSOR PLATFORM, SHORT TERM DATA LOGGER AND PROGRAMMABLE, NAVAGABLE VESSEL. DEVELOPMENT OF SYSTEM COMPONENTS CAPITALIZES ON RECENT INVESTMENTS BY DOD AND INDUSTRY IN BUOY AND VESSEL TECHNOLOGY. INITIAL EFFORTS WILL FOCUS ON PERFECTING VEHICLE DOCKING, RECHARGE AND DATA EXCHANGE. BASED ON RELIABLE PERFORMANCE OF THESE CRITICAL TASKS, A LOCAL AOSN WILL BE FABRICATED, TESTED AND DEPLOYED AS PART OF AN ARCTIC ICE MECHANICS EXPERIMENT (1993) TO RESOLVE THE EVOLUTION OF THREE DIMENSIONAL FIELDS OF ICE THICKNESS AND UPPER OCEAN VARIABLES AND FURTHER UNDERSTANDING OF THE UNDERLYING MECHANICS.