Collaborative Research: An Autonomous Vertical Sampling Vehicle for Global Ocean Biogeochemical Mapping

私人投资机构要求提供资金，以开发具有生物地球化学采样能力的快速垂直剖面自主水下航行器。该系统将为GEOTRACES计划增加一个新的和迫切需要的生物学层面，并很可能成为GENOTRACES微生物和酶研究计划的中心工具-最终实现微生物DNA、RNA和蛋白质(包括关键的生物地球化学酶)的全球海洋测绘。PIS将开发一种无线水柱采样技术：一种额定6000米的自主垂直采样车，具有高吞吐量采样和传感有效载荷。快速垂直传输、6000米的深度范围和在许多目标深度停留的需要相结合，是一项新的和重大的工程挑战，开发一种能够完成这一任务的飞行器，具有地球轨道采样所需的采样能力，是本计划的目标。广泛影响：该项目将把海洋样本收集带入未来，需要从各种自主平台收集样本。这具有非常重要的社会意义，因为了解海洋、海洋的巨大规模及其在全球进程中的作用需要的不仅仅是船只和系泊设备，它还将从海洋的许多部分采集样本，并通过多种技术对许多不同的分析物进行分析。该项目还将在史密斯学院的Picker工程项目的高级工程设计课程期间，连续资助两个本科女性工程专业学生团队。这被视为一个真正的加分和创新的外展努力。过去，PI非常成功地做到了这一点。

The PIs request funding to develop a rapid vertical profiling autonomous underwater vehicle with biogeochemical sampling capabilities. This system will add a new, and much needed, biological dimension to the GEOTRACES program, and would most likely become the central instrument for a GENOTRACES microbial and enzymes research initiative - ultimately enabling the global marine mapping of microbial DNA, RNA and proteins, including key biogeochemical enzymes. The PIs will develop a wireless water-column sampling technology: a 6000m rated autonomous vertical sampling vehicle with a high throughput sampling and sensing payload. The combinationof rapid vertical transport, the 6000 m depth range, and the need to stop at numerous target depths represents a novel and significant engineering challenge and developing a vehicle capable of this task with the sampling capacity needed for GENOTRACES "-omic" sampling is the objective of this proposal.Broader Impacts: This project leads oceanic sample collection into the future where they will need to be collected from a variety of autonomous platforms. This is of great societal importance because understanding the ocean, its sheer magnitude, and its role in global processes will require more than ships and moorings, it will take samples from many parts of the ocean and their analysis by many techniques for many different analytes. This project will also sponsor two consecutive teams of undergraduate female engineering students from Smith College's Picker Engineering Program during their senior engineering design course. This is seen as a real plus and an innovative outreach effort. The PI has very successfully done this in the past.