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13 Advancing Multi-Vehicle Deployments in Oceanographic Field Experiments 13 Fig. 12 Video feed captured by X8-03 UAV with infrared imagery on the right. (a) Launching the LAUV-Xplore-1 off of a pier in the island of Horta for testing. Inset image shows the nose cone of the AUV with an experimental miniature holographic camera. (b) A test flight of the X8 Skywalker UAV prior to offshore operations. Fig. 11 Tests of platforms on-shore prior to the cruise. Operations were conducted on board the Portuguese Navy research vessel NRP Almirante Gago Coutinho1, which was used for launching and recovering AUVs and UAVs from the aft deck (Fig. 1). All operators and pilots were on board the vessel which had multiple antennas which provided Wi-Fi coverage via Ubiquiti radios. The antennas were connected to multiple Manta communications gateways that relayed all data between unmanned vehicles and NEPTUS consoles. Inside the ship, a local area network was created to which all systems (mantas and consoles) were connected to. This network setup allowed operators to be aware of the AUV and UAV operations simultaneously (Fig. 10). Two upper water-column Light AUVs [50] (LAUVXplore-1 & LAUV-Xplore-2) were used, both equipped with WHOI acoustic modems and Iridium SBD modems. LAUV-Xplore-1 was additionally equipped with an RBR XR620 CTD (Conductivity, temperature and Density) and an experimental holographic particle 1 imaging system developed at Plymouth University (Fig. 11(a)) [25]. LAUV-Xplore-2, which is a similar vehicle in size and endurance, included only a Turner Designs Cyclops-7 wet-probe with a fluorometer. Both these vehicles can travel at a nominal speed of 2 knots ( 1 m/s) for up to 24 hours. Moreover, while deployed in the open sea, they can receive new commands and report their state over Iridium SBD messages (up to 250 bytes using RockBlock 2 ). Additionally, there were multiple Skywalker X8 UAVs, seen in Fig. 11(b), at our disposal. These lowcost vehicles are adaptation of COTS (Commercial OffThe-Shelf) units which LSTS has augmented with specific components including System-On-a-Chip (SOC) CPUs, communications hardware and specific sensor payload. These frames, normally used for RC-flying, are inexpensive and made a resilient styrofoam which can be be further customized if needed. The system has a maximum flight time of around 45 minutes at an average cruise speed of 17 m/s giving it a useful (round trip) range of almost 25km which are typically not utilized in our kind of scenario. For this experiment, the UAVs carried both video cameras providing real-time feed to operators and still cameras taking periodic imagery of the water at high resolution. While some cameras captured visible light, others sampled in the LWIR spectrum (Fig. 12). We also deployed a new light-weight hyper-spectral imager on a separate UAV for purposes of testing; the results of that test are not part of this work. As noted earlier, the key scientific objective of this field experiment was to characterize the upper water column properties within sperm whale foraging areas to understand what drives their foraging behavior. Our scenario called for either an experienced human observer on a separate boat, or airborne UAVs with realtime imagers, to be able determine target cetaceans on the surface. Researchers on board the ship or small vessels acted as spotters. 2

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19 Advancing Multi-Vehicle Deployments in Oceanographic Field Experiments Cup Middle Size League competition (RoboCup 2009) and in a couple of National Middle Size League competitions - Robótica 2009 and Robótica 2010). Frédéric Py holds a doctorate degree in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence from University Paul Sabatier, Toulouse. He has pioneered the use of advanced statistical methods using Clustering algorithms for detecting dynamic events in the water-column in the ocean and has lead the development and design of the T-REX software agent for high level planning and execution along with its application on scientific operations. Moreover, he has worked on automated model learning techniques for in situ analysis of physical oceanographic processes (such as Intermediate Nepheloid Layer, plume,...) He has collaborated with the LSTS team during the last 2 REP projects, where we worked together integrating the T-REX architecture which he developed while working at MBARI and still supports up to this day. José Pinto was born in Matosinhos, Portugal, in He received the B.S. degree in computer science from Porto University, Porto, Portugal, in He joined the Underwater Systems and Technology Laboratory (LSTS) in 2004 still as an undergraduate student when he started the developments leading to the creation of the Neptus Command and Control Infrastructure as well as other parts of the LSTS Software Toolchain. During his stay at LSTS he has been working towards the autonomous operation of watercolumn AUVs from satellite communications to underlying control layers, cloud services and user interfaces. Since 2006 he is an Assistant Professor at Porto University, teaching classes on Programming and Embedded Computers. Currently he is finishing his PhD (ABD) on Coordination Infrastructures for Networked Vehicle Systems, under the supervision of João Borges de Sousa. 19 Mónica A. Silva graduated in Biology from the University of Lisbon in 1996 and received my PhD degree from the University of St. Andrews (Scotland) in From the time of graduation until enrolling in a PhD, she developed research on marine mammal biology and ecology and Marine Protected Area design at the Nature Conservation Institute (Lisbon), Ministry of the Environment; worked as scientific consultant for the World Conservation Union in Guinea-Bissau, developing a Conservation Plan for the West African manatee; and was temporarily assigned (3 years) to the Department of Oceanography and Fisheries/University of the Azores (DOP/UAz), to work as a Research Assistant in the scope of an EC LIFE-Nature Project. She started a post-doc in 2007 at the Centre of IMAR of the University of the Azores (IMAR/UAz) and at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) (USA). In 2013 she was awarded a 5-year contract as Senior Research Associate (Investigador Auxiliar under FCT Investigator Programme) at IMAR. Alex is an Associate Professor (Reader) in Marine Physics at Plymouth University, and is part of the Marine Physics Research Group (MPRG). His research interests are focussed around suspended particle dynamics, both in terms of how particles (plankton, sediment, bubbles, droplets) behave in a natural, turbulent environment, and also in the use of particles as tracers of turbulent flows. He has developed several in situ optical systems to directly image particles for measurement and identification, and visualise 3D turbulence structure. He s member of the Challenger Society for Marine Science, of the American Geophysical Union and fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

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