Aguzzi, Jacopo

Company, Joan Batista

Manuel Lázaro, Antonio

Río Fernandez, Joaquín del

Sardà, Francesc

Sarriá Gandul, David

Río Fernández, Joaquín del

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This, the fifth issue of the InstrumentationViewpoint magazine, presents SARTI’s research andtechnological activities during 2006.This issue has proved much more difficult to producethan previous ones, above all after the publishing ofthe special issue which came after the  Martechworkshop in November 2005 , Our group has morethings to explain and we are involved in a compromise,with ourselves and our readers.  In this issue themagazine also has an electronic ISSN and some of theactivities have been developed in collaboration withother research groups or universities such as theNational University of Colombia Universidad or  thePolytechnic University of Madrid. We encouragedand invited them to participate and this experience ofsharing ideas that we are now initiating has allowedus to establish new collaboration links.We do not pretend to offer an exhaustivepresentation of the activities in this magazine but tooutline our work environment. Some of the relatedactivities are a short description of papers acceptedand presented in different reputed congresses suchas Instrumentation and Measurement and IndustrialElectronics IEEE SocietiesWe would like to take this opportunity to invite youto present your collaborations in the next issue. Ourgoal is to make Instrumentation Viewpoint  amedium where knowledge and research oninstrumentation between colleagues can be sharedand consequently become a window for all ouractivitiesBest regards from your partnerAntoni Mànuel, PhDDirector of TDC SARTIEditor’s Note3The NORIT project: the incidence of Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicusL.) emergence activity rhythms on its population assessmentThe Norway lobster, Nephrops norvegicus (L.) is adecapod crustacean inhabiting complex burrowsystems in muddy continental shelves and slopes ofthe Atlantic and Mediterranean Europe. This speciesis fished intensively in the Mediterranean and isshowing signs of overexploitation. Animals performmergence under optimum light intensity whose timingvaries at different intervals during a 24-h cycle.Commercial catches are used as indicators of animalbehaviour in the field since they can be captured bytrawl nets only when residing outside their burrows,(Fig. 1): crepuscular peaks of catches are accountedon upper and lower shelves (from 20 to 200 m) whichare fully diurnal on the 400-410 m slope.different manner by the previously quoted variables.The objective of the NORIT project is to measureInstrumentation Viewpoint, Sarti News BulletinOther factors such as size, the stage of sexualdevelopment, the presence of food or otherconspecifics affect this emergence in a way which isstill unknown today. In a earlier project (NERIT),rhythms in behaviour and physiology were measuredonly in adult males. An intuition yet to beconfirmed,was made: the 24-h behavioural cycle ofNephrops is subdivided into three temporally distinctperformances: in burrow locomotor activity, doorkeeping (wait at the burrow entrance) and excursion.The duration of each performance can be affected in aAn infrared-sensible analogical USB videocameraconnected to a USB concentrator, which in turn isconnected to a PC, will obtain frames every 30 secover consecutive cycles of 24-h light-darkness andconstant darkness conditions from many tanks. Anexperiment with 10 tanks and 10 USB infraredvideocamera is currently being developed. The imageacquisition and processing software is LabVIEW.Different virtual instruments have been developedwith LabVIEW to acquire image from the low costinfrared usb videocameras, and then to process andextract information about the localization of theanimal. The application save this information togetherwith other parameters. This system will be coupledwith infrared sensors for the detection of movementlocated at different distances from the burrowentrance. Each tank is divided into 4 zones wereinfrared sensors have been placed to check if theanimal is actually in these zones or not. The sensors4AbstractThis article presents the results of the preliminarystudy carried out to determine the main requirementsand conditions to be satisfied in the design of asubmarine observatory infrastructure. The mainconcerns and some suggested lines to pursue arepresented for discussion. Project and work is alsodivided into specialized work units with specificresponsibilities over the whole project.IntroductionMarine research information needs increase incomplexity, resolution requirements and volume ofinformation allowing a better study capacity over abroader spectrum of phenomena as physicalprocesses, marine meteorology, geology, geophysics,geochemistry, biogeochemistry and physics –biology interactions among others.Traditional observation and data acquisition systems,such as ships, buoys and autonomous sensors, maypresent some difficulties regarding costs, poor volumeof data in terms of physical extension and period oftime, lack of remote control capacity to changeconfigurations dynamically or low reliability ormodularity to better adapt to any condition.Instrumentation Viewpoint, Sarti News BulletinDesign of a SubmarineObservatory.Some aspects to beconsideredare connected to a custom electronic board designedspecifically for this project. The electronics arecomposed mainly of the signal conditioning of infraredsensors, a set of analogue multiplexers and a low-costmicrocontroller with analogue to digital converters.The microcontroller sends the information from theinfrared sensors to the computer by USB where theLabVEW application transform it into informationabout localization of the animal.   Behavioural data willmodulation of emergence rhythms in response to sex,size, isolation or grouping and the presence of food.In order to carry out these measurements technologyis required. The team is multidisciplinary: thebiological expertise will be provided by researchersspecialised in behaviour and physiology of Nephrops(ICM-CSIC) while the engineering know-how will beprovided by experts in telecommunications andelectronics (SARTI-UPC). Experimental tanksendowed with artificial burrows will be equipped withinnovative and integrated systems for the automatedcollection of behavioural data (Fig. 2): remote sensing(telemetry), infrared technology and video imageanalysis.be automatically processed by software in order toobtain time series of events per arbitrary unit of time.At present, success is guaranteed by theaccomplishment of the technological objectives sincethose are integrated but at the same time, independentfrom the scientific ones. Also, some of the proposednew measuring techniques are important since theywill be developed with the ultimate goal of theirapplication in field studies. The development of newsystems of remote data acquisition and theirintegration and adaptation into the already existingones, will allow us to obtain smaller, more easilymanageable and less aggressive devices forbehavioural monitoring. With these new systems ofprobes and receiving hardware, a reduced level ofstress to animals will be achieved, a fundamentalfactor when measuring all different aspects ofbehavioural patterns connected  with emergence inthis species. Also, as a result of these new systems,the measurements will be obtained with the highestprecision achievable.

The NORIT project: the incidence of Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus L.) emergence activity rhythms on its population assessment

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