Tristan Russo, Texas Tech University
Autonomy- the freedom from external control. It is unceasingly transforming the world around us, bringing opportunities to revolutionize industries and expand frontiers. The Saildrone is an unmanned surface vehicle developed for long range, long term, ocean data gathering. In the project we looked at data obtained by the EK80 single beam sonar device and GPS transponder that outfitted the Saildrone which explored the Bering Sea. The objective was to take the raw data from the sonar pings and build a computer program that could preform several tasks to achieve the ultimate goal of using the Saildrone for sea floor mapping in areas where it is difficult or not economical to send survey ships. The data set spanned three months. The program takes the raw data, preforms bottom detections and interpolates them with five second GPS positions. It also accounts for tides and the sound-speed changes throughout its journey. The data is then mapped over existing depth measurements from past surveys as long ago as the early 1900's for comparison. I will be discussing both the results of the expedition and the future uses for unmanned surface vehicles including spill detection and reservoir discovery.