A novel conceptual design is presented for a research platform for Autonomous Transient Ocean Event Monitoring
(ATOEM). In simplest form, ATOEM would be an autonomous diesel-electric submarine of conventional design, but stripped of all of its requirements for human occupation and life support, and whose “torpedo” tubes would instead be loaded with a variety of AUV configurations (e.g., benthic, photic zone and midwater) capable of autonomous docking with the “mother ship”. Global deployment of a large fleet of modular, low-cost, highly-manufacturable ATOEM
platforms has the potential to transform oceanographic research by providing coordinated, comprehensive, time-series, spatiotemporal measurements of all key ocean properties on an unprecedented scale.
The Need for a full complement of oceanographic research assets and infrastructure to address critical environmental and societal issues relating to our oceans has been well-defined by a number of Federal agencies. Global Oceans presents here a new model for optimizing an old idea: the chartering of chartering non-research vessels for scientific research to fill infrastructure gaps and augment existing resources. The distinguishing qualities of this model are that it is both Adaptable to the science needs of each cruise ans Scalable globally, including to remote and understudied geographic regions. It is demonstrated here that the Global Oceans model accomplishes these objectives in a way that is functionally and operationally on a par with dedicated research vesels.
MoreDescription of the Mk 18 Mod 2 Kingfish, and discussion of the User Operational Evaluatiin System (UOES) process.
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