Collaborative Research: Development of a Swarm of Autonomous Subsea Vehicles to Infer Plankton Growth and Transport

合作研究：开发一批自主海底车辆来推断浮游生物的生长和运输

• 批准号: 2219933
• 负责人: Jessica Carriere-Garwood
• 金额: $ 31.73万
• 依托单位: Oregon State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-15 至 2025-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2219933&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Development; Swarm; Autonomous

Marine plankton are likely the most important components of marine ecosystems: the phytoplankton produce oxygen as they create organic carbon through photosynthesis, while the zooplankton transfer this organic carbon to top predators such as fish, seabirds, marine mammals, and humans. Despite being relatively weak, plankton swimming behaviors can play an important role in determining their distribution and survival: swimming allows plankton to find food, reproduce, and avoid predators in a dynamic and patchy fluid environment. These behaviors also influence plankton dispersal and survival by modulating the ocean conditions that the plankton experience. Because it is presently impossible to track individual plankton for long periods in situ, current insights into the trade-offs and benefits associated with plankton behaviors have only been gained from experiments in controlled settings and from numerical models. Having drifting vehicles that simulate planktonic behaviors would enable unique and powerful insights into how plankton interact with the currents and properties of their environment. During this project, investigators will develop small, next-generation, subsurface, autonomous, buoyancy-controlled vehicles – plankton mimics – to study how relatively simple behaviors of plankton can alter their transport and environment. By sampling the ocean like planktonic organisms, this unique vehicle swarm will give plankton researchers unprecedented data to validate experimental and model predictions, and, hopefully, reveal previously unknown mechanisms driving planktonic population dynamics.To accomplish the above goals, a swarm of 20 quasi-Lagrangian underwater vehicles will be fabricated. The vehicles will mimic plankton behavior and will be tracked in 3D for 24–72 hours. These goals will be achieved based on several novel technological advances: 1) improved subsurface localization using the most recent developments in acoustic modem technology at reduced cost, 2) subsurface vehicle communication with surface buoys to relay vehicle information (e.g., data, location) to scientists on a nearby ship to facilitate additional ship-based sampling, and 3) a near-incompressible housing and drag skirts to improve the vehicles’ ability to follow fluid velocities and provide a ‘no behavior’ mode. The swarm will be optimized to investigate biological-physical interactions at spatial scales up to 10 km, focusing on internal waves and fronts. Ultimate performance tests will target high-frequency internal waves, acquiring vehicle trajectories with a spatial resolution of tens of centimeters vertically, sub-meters horizontally, and a temporal resolution of minutes. Additional sensors will provide along-track information on ocean temperature, salinity, irradiance, and chlorophyll-a. These data will provide unique time series of physical and environmental data along planktonic trajectories in the ocean. The vehicle swarm will generate multiple tracks showing the environmental properties in 3D along with the physical transport associated with different behaviors in the similar environments. Such tracks will lead to insights regarding the cues and consequences of behaviors in the plankter’s natural environment.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

海洋浮游生物可能是海洋生态系统中最重要的组成部分：浮游植物通过光合作用产生有机碳，产生氧气，而浮游动物将这些有机碳转移给鱼类、海鸟、海洋哺乳动物和人类等顶级捕食者。尽管浮游生物相对较弱，但游动行为在决定其分布和生存方面发挥着重要作用：游动使浮游生物能够在动态和不均匀的流体环境中寻找食物、繁殖和躲避捕食者。这些行为还通过调节浮游生物所经历的海洋条件来影响浮游生物的扩散和生存。由于目前不可能在原地长时间跟踪单个浮游生物，目前对浮游生物行为的权衡和利益的见解只能从受控环境下的实验和数值模型中获得。拥有模拟浮游生物行为的漂流工具将使人们能够独特而有力地了解浮游生物是如何与洋流和环境特性相互作用的。在这个项目中，研究人员将开发小型的、下一代的、地下的、自主的、浮力控制的交通工具——浮游生物模拟物——来研究浮游生物相对简单的行为是如何改变它们的运输和环境的。通过像浮游生物一样对海洋进行采样，这种独特的交通工具群将为浮游生物研究人员提供前所未有的数据，以验证实验和模型预测，并有望揭示以前未知的驱动浮游生物种群动态的机制。为了实现上述目标，将制造20个准拉格朗日水下航行器。这些交通工具将模仿浮游生物的行为，并在24-72小时内进行3D跟踪。这些目标的实现将基于几项新的技术进步：1)利用声学调制解调器技术的最新发展，以更低的成本改善水下定位；2)水下车辆与水面浮标通信，将车辆信息（如数据、位置）传递给附近船上的科学家，以方便额外的船上采样；3)近乎不可压缩的外壳和拖曳裙子，以提高车辆跟随流体速度的能力，并提供“无行为”模式。该群将被优化，以在长达10公里的空间尺度上研究生物-物理相互作用，重点是内部波和锋面。终极性能测试将以高频内波为目标，获取垂直空间分辨率为数十厘米、水平分辨率为亚米、时间分辨率为几分钟的飞行器轨迹。额外的传感器将提供有关海洋温度、盐度、辐照度和叶绿素a的跟踪信息。这些数据将提供沿海洋浮游生物轨迹的独特的物理和环境数据时间序列。车辆群将产生多条轨迹，以3D的方式显示环境属性，以及在类似环境中与不同行为相关的物理运输。这些轨迹将引导我们深入了解浮游生物在自然环境中行为的线索和后果。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。