Here we started with a tuna tracking system. The UAV is responding to the tuna on the surface. It monitors them when they're feeding. We need some target recognition. We're looking at days of the week that are ideal. We had a lot of discussion about the endurance, from 1 day to half a year; the longer the better.
We came up with the concept of adaptive sampling. Once we find the fish we may want periodic imagery. If there is a vessel fishing, we may need more images. We want status back of the basics and further imaging beyond that.
To support that we came up with a long range infrared camera, lidar and video camera. Beyond that we came up with a pretty capable system that we couldn't do right now. We'll have to sacrifice the duration we'd like.
Q: What does lidar do for you?
A: if we use it right, with the automatic tracking recognition, we would find the tuna. WIth the way we get satellite information right now, we won't really find them by the time we get the data. The lidar gives underwater information.
Click here to open this Matrix (Word doc)
Here is an actual proposal that is being submitted about coral We want something small, such as a boat-launched UAV. We may have divers in the water who are targeted to different areas. It requires short endurance, 4 hours. There is a limited window between 10am and 2pm because of the solar angle.
We came up with similar instruments to our first mission. We want to get status back on the vehicle based on what the field divers are saying.
We do need a high noon position so our navigational system needs to be precise.
In the southern oceans, we drop iron and look for primary production of algae. We're looking at the CO2 production and how they've changed. We're looking at about 10meters off the water's surface. We need a CO2 monitor. We need to look at the sea surface and roughness, air velocity with precise measurements. We also need terrain avoidance about 20 meters high.
We came up with the idea of seeding the iron with a UAV but it's a ton of iron.
Two days is a reasonable time for the UAV to fly over at an elevation of 1kmeters. We're looking to get the data back and some fairly serious automation. We need to tell when we're over something.
Comment: We spend a lot of time on this one. There is no small instrument of precise CO2. You also need precise water vapor. The state of the art right now is about 300 lbs. The CO2 instrument is also heavy. So you're in a whole new class of UAV.
Our last one is about plumes. We want to see the plumes coming out of the rivers. We need some tie-in to trigger measurement. The balloons don't last for awhile but we need more.
Our suite of instruments look similar to the rest.
Most of our missions could almost be done, but the algorithms need to be pumped in.
Q: Bi-directional reflection of ocean color. Are there any factors of the lumination angle to the viewing angle? Difference in the solar angle compared to the viewing angle, depending on which side of the swath you're on.
A: The viewing channel is the same.