Development and deployment of a swarm of mini-floats for studying coastal physical and biological dynamics

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"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)."The PIs request funding to develop the next generation of mini-floats for in situ measurement of currents and environmental variables (fluorescence, temperature, PAR). The principal objective of these mini-floats is to sample oceanic processes at high temporal resolution (minutes) with concurrent spatial resolution of 10's of meters. To accomplish this goal the PIs propose to develop, fabricate, test, and deploy swarms of mini-floats that are spatially geo-referenced and temporally synchronized. The plan is facilitated by the design of a new buoyancy control mechanism that will permit the current Autonomous Underwater Explorer (AUE) vehicles and a newer, smaller, 1 liter sized MINI-AUE vehicle to autonomously profile and then surface to establish satellite communication. To test the development, the PIs will use the vehicles in a scientific program to quantify trajectories of meroplanktonic larvae in the coastal ocean, and investigate advection and patch formation of neutrally buoyant and swimming plankton in nonlinear internal waves. At the conclusion of the project, the PIs hope to demonstrate the utility of these mini floats in ocean research and also have a small fleet of such vehicles for future work. Broader Impacts:This proposal has an extensive broader impact component. Beyond developing a tool that will transform coastal studies of physical dynamics and plankton (dispersal, accumulation etc') it involves an important outreach component involving middle and high school students. The students will get to build a float and track it. This is the type of activities that are likely to excite youth to pursue science in general and oceanography/engineering in particular. A post-doctoral scholar will also be funded on this project who will gain valuable engineering/oceanographic experience within a cutting edge lab.