Nutrient sensors on autonomous vehicles

海洋占地球表面的70%，在影响我们的气候、天气和粮食安全方面发挥着关键作用，但海洋在很大程度上仍未被探索或了解。尤其重要的是，我们必须增进对海洋化学的了解，因为它决定了海洋生态系统如何发挥作用，如何对气候变化和人类活动的增加作出反应。海水化学测量通常使用研究船收集水样，然后将其保存并送回实验室或在船上进行分析。科考船的建造和操作都非常昂贵，这确实限制了我们对海洋中化学物质分布（以及它们如何随时间变化）的了解。我们可以说海洋样本不足。这导致了几种机器人系统（海洋自主系统）的发展，这些系统可以在水面（例如无人水面车辆）或深度（例如水下滑翔机和Autosub）上操作。为了使机器人系统真正能够取代或增强科考船的活动，它们必须能够在船上进行化学测量。目前，在船舶自主系统上部署的可靠、准确的化学传感器确实缺乏，这阻碍了这些系统充分发挥其潜力。该项目将推动NOC开发的整套微型营养分析仪的发展，使其可以常规部署在自动驾驶车辆上。这些传感器实际上是微型化的实验室（芯片实验室），使用微量的海水样本和化学试剂在微流体通道中进行海水化学分析。这些分析的结果（关于海水中磷酸盐和硅酸盐等营养物质浓度的信息）将通过卫星从自动驾驶车辆传输，以便实验室的科学家可以接收实时数据。几年来，我们一直在开发这些传感器，并将它们部署在河流、河口和海洋中。该项目将改进传感器，使其更适合部署在海洋自主系统上，并最终推动它们在机器人海洋车辆上实现常规使用。最终，这将产生更完整、成本更低的海洋化学数据集，有助于提高我们对海洋生态系统如何工作以及它们如何应对气候变化的认识。为了确保传感器可以广泛使用，我们将与业界合作，包括现有的合作伙伴，制造可以销售给广泛用户的商业产品。这将有助于扩大和广泛使用这些技术和项目产出。

Oceans occupy 70% of Earth's surface and play a key role in influencing our climate, weather and food security, yet they are still largely not yet explored or understood. In particular it is essential that we increase our understanding of ocean chemistry, because it determines how ocean ecosystems function and respond to changes in our climate and increased human activity. Seawater chemical measurements are usually taken using a research ship to collect water samples, which are then either preserved and sent back to the laboratory or analysed on-board the ship. Research ships are incredibly expensive to build and operate, and this really limits our knowledge of chemical distributions in our oceans (and how they change over time). We could say that the oceans are under-sampled.This has led to the development of several robotic systems (Marine Autonomous Systems) which operate either on the surface (e.g. Unmanned Surface Vehicles) or at depth (e.g. underwater gliders and Autosub). In order for robotic systems to be realistically able to replace or augment the activities of a research ship, it is essential for them to be able to take chemical measurements on-board. Currently there is a real lack of reliable and accurate chemical sensors that can be deployed on marine autonomous systems, preventing these systems from reaching their full potential. This project will advance the development of a whole family of miniaturised nutrient analysers developed at NOC so that they can be routinely deployed on autonomous vehicles. The sensors are effectively miniaturised laboratories (lab-on-a-chip) which perform seawater chemical analysis in microfluidic channels using tiny amounts of seawater sample and chemical reagents. The results of these analyses (information about the concentration of nutrients in seawater such as phosphate and silicate) will be transmitted from the autonomous vehicle using satellites, so that scientists back in the lab can receive real-time data. We have been developing these sensors for several years and have deployed them previously in rivers, estuaries and in the ocean. This project will improve the sensors to make them more suitable for deployment on marine autonomous systems, and represents the final push to allow them to achieve routine usage on robotic marine vehicles. Ultimately, this will result in more complete and lower-cost ocean chemical datasets, helping advance our knowledge of how ocean ecosystems work and how they respond to a changing climate.To ensure that the sensors can be used widely, we will work with industry, including existing partners, to make commercial products that can be sold to a wide range of users. This will enable scale-up and widespread use of the technologies and project outputs.