OMAE2007-29202 C-MANIPULATOR: AN AUTONOMOUS DUAL MANIPULATOR PROJECT FOR UNDERWATER INSPECTION AND MAINTENANCE

ABSTRACT We present the new project C-Manipulator (funded by the German Ministry of Economics (BMWI), Grant No. 03SX231). The goal of C

Untersuchungen von optischen Scansystemen zur geometrischen Erfassung von Unterwasserstrukturen

Dieser Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit optischen Erfassungs- und Scansystemen für den Bereich unter Wasser. Dabei wurde eine Einteilung in photogrammetrische, trigonometrische und impulsbasierte Systeme vorgenommen. Es wurden Messungen mit verschiedenen Systemen im Schleppkanal des Lehrstuhls für Strömungstechnik der Universität Rostock durchgeführt. Stellvertretend für photogrammetrische Erfassungssysteme kam das Stereokamerasystem vom Fraunhofer-Institut für Graphische Datenverarbeitung zum Einsatz. Das ULS-200-Scansystem von 2GRobotics und das SeaVision- Lasersystem von Kraken Robotik standen stellvertretend für trigonometrische Scansysteme zur Verfügung. Ein impulsbasiertes Scansystem stand für die Untersuchungen nicht bereit. Zusätzlich wurde das SeaVision-Scansystem in der Ostsee nahe des künstlichen Riffs bei Nienhagen unter realistischen Bedingungen getestet. Die Messungen spiegeln das derzeitige Potenzial optischer Messsysteme für den Bereich unter Wasser wider. Vor- und Nachteile der Systeme werden diskutiert

A Flexible Autonomous Robotic Observatory Infrastructure for Bentho-Pelagic Monitoring

This paper presents the technological developments and the policy contexts for the project “Autonomous Robotic Sea-Floor Infrastructure for Bentho-Pelagic Monitoring” (ARIM). The development is based on the national experience with robotic component technologies that are combined and merged into a new product for autonomous and integrated ecological deep-sea monitoring. Traditional monitoring is often vessel-based and thus resource demanding. It is economically unviable to fulfill the current policy for ecosystem monitoring with traditional approaches. Thus, this project developed platforms for bentho-pelagic monitoring using an arrangement of crawler and stationary platforms at the Lofoten-Vesterålen (LoVe) observatory network (Norway). Visual and acoustic imaging along with standard oceanographic sensors have been combined to support advanced and continuous spatial-temporal monitoring near cold water coral mounds. Just as important is the automatic processing techniques under development that have been implemented to allow species (or categories of species) quantification (i.e., tracking and classification). At the same time, real-time outboard processed three-dimensional (3D) laser scanning has been implemented to increase mission autonomy capability, delivering quantifiable information on habitat features (i.e., for seascape approaches). The first version of platform autonomy has already been tested under controlled conditions with a tethered crawler exploring the vicinity of a cabled stationary instrumented garage. Our vision is that elimination of the tether in combination with inductive battery recharge trough fuel cell technology will facilitate self-sustained long-term autonomous operations over large areas, serving not only the needs of science, but also sub-sea industries like subsea oil and gas, and mining

WORKING GROUP ON NEPHROPS SURVEYS (WGNEPS ; outputs from 2020)

The Working Group on Nephrops Surveys (WGNEPS) is the international coordination group for Nephrops underwater television and trawl surveys within ICES. This report summarizes the na-tional contributions on the results of the surveys conducted in 2020 together with time series covering all survey years, problems encountered, data quality checks and technological improve-ments as well as the planning for survey activities for 2021.ICE

Developing technological synergies between deep-sea and space research

Recent advances in robotic design, autonomy and sensor integration create solutions for the exploration of deep-sea environments, transferable to the oceans of icy moons. Marine platforms do not yet have the mission autonomy capacity of their space counterparts (e.g., the state of the art Mars Perseverance rover mission), although different levels of autonomous navigation and mapping, as well as sampling, are an extant capability. In this setting their increasingly biomimicked designs may allow access to complex environmental scenarios, with novel, highly-integrated life-detecting, oceanographic and geochemical sensor packages. Here, we lay an outlook for the upcoming advances in deep-sea robotics through synergies with space technologies within three major research areas: biomimetic structure and propulsion (including power storage and generation), artificial intelligence and cooperative networks, and life-detecting instrument design. New morphological and material designs, with miniaturized and more diffuse sensor packages, will advance robotic sensing systems. Artificial intelligence algorithms controlling navigation and communications will allow the further development of the behavioral biomimicking by cooperating networks. Solutions will have to be tested within infrastructural networks of cabled observatories, neutrino telescopes, and off-shore industry sites with agendas and modalities that are beyond the scope of our work, but could draw inspiration on the proposed examples for the operational combination of fixed and mobile platforms

Onchocerciasis: The Pre-control Association between Prevalence of Palpable Nodules and Skin Microfilariae

*Background*: The prospect of eliminating onchocerciasis from Africa by mass treatment with ivermectin has been rejuvenated following recent successes in foci in Mali, Nigeria and Senegal. Elimination prospects depend strongly on local transmission conditions and therefore on pre-control infection levels. Pre-control infection levels in Africa have been mapped largely by means of nodule palpation of adult males, a relatively crude method for detecting infection. We investigated how informative pre-control nodule prevalence data are for estimating the pre-control prevalence of