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Systems, Sensors & Sampling Equipment

On this page: Vehicle Sensors | Geophysical Sensors | Oceanographic Sensors | User Interfaces | Sampling Equipment

Vehicle Sensors

  • Pressure: Paroscientific 8B7000-I, Digiquartz depth sensor, rated to 7,000e meters (23,000 feet)
  • Doppler Velocity Logger (DVL): RDI, 300kHz
  • Doppler Velocity Logger (DVL): Nortek, DVL500, 6,000 meters
  • Attitude sensors (pitch, roll, heading-internal):  IXBLUE PHINS III
  • Inertial navigation (internal): IXBLUE PHINS III

AUV Sentry

Geophysical Sensors

  • Multibeam mapping sonar: Kongsberg EM2040, 200Khz and 400Khz
  • Edgetech 120/230/540kHz Side Scan
  • Edgetech 4kHz to 20kHz = 4-24kHz chirp sub-bottom profiler
  • Three high precision, digital, APS 3-axis fluxgate magnetometers; two mounted midship (port, starboard) in a horizontal gradient mode and a third mounted centrally within the vehicle above the other two in a vertical gradient mode.

Oceanographic Sensors

  • CTD sensor: Seabird 49
  • Optical Backscatter (OBS): Seapoint Turbidity Meter
  • Seafloor photography: Prosilica GE4000C Digital Still Camera (color still camera with strobe, rated to 6,000 meters)
  • Oxygen Sensor: Aanderaa Optode
  • NOAA ORP (oxidation-reduction potential) sensor
NavG (v.2) display: Green solid lines over bathymetry contour lines = programmed tracklines (also, red solid lines is the portion of the survey Sentry has accomplished; yellow vehicle object = AUV Sentry location; white ship object = ship navigation location.

User Interfaces

NavG is a part of the AUV Sentry vehicle tracking console that allows the Operations team, ship, and science users to monitor the progress of the vehicle's progress while underway. This user interface is, in general, set up in the Sentry Operations watchstanding station as well as at ship's bridge so that the team and the ship can closely communicate to optimize Sentry navigation by monitoring the same real-time information. Scientists could preview NavG on one of the lab monitors upon request to track the mission progress in part of their strategizing the next science activities.

Sampling Equipment

The SentrY Precision Robotic Impeller Driven (SyPRID) sampler (Billings et al., 2017) is an innovative, deep-rated (6000 m) plankton sampler that partners with the Sentry Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) to obtain paired, large-volume plankton samples at specified depths and survey lines.