HUDSON

Harvesting of Underwater Data from SensOr Networks

Underwater sensor networks can comprise seabed moorings, floats, mobile sensing robots, and sensors fixed to infrastructure, e.g. cabling and piping. Communicating via acoustic modems, underwater sensor networks are modular, highly scalable, and tolerant to faults within individual sensor nodes. Underwater sensor networks enable persistent monitoring of key infrastructure, greatly increasing the spatial and temporal coverage of measurements compared to using a survey vessel or mobile sensing robot such as an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV).

HUDSON - Harvesting of Underwater Data from SensOr Networks

HUDSON will develop models and systems to enable an AUV to harvest measurements from stationary smart sensor nodes within a sparse underwater sensor network via acoustic modems. The smart sensor nodes adapt their measurement frequency in response to observations of their operating environment and aggregation of data over the network, potentially waking up additional sensor nodes to increase the spatial resolution within a region of the sensor network.

The AUV will need to repeatedly move between sensor nodes within the network to download data with the highest expected value and provide additional sensing capability over local areas when requested by nodes within the sensor network. The AUV will be subject to significant growth in navigation error, requiring the vehicle to plan when to request position updates from the sensor network to constrain the error and ensure it is capable of accurately navigating to the next node.

We will evaluate our approach using field trials; analysing the scalability of the approach to offshore applications in more complex marine environments and other mobile sensor platforms.

Lead Investigator: Dr. Catherine Harris – National Oceanography Centre

Dr. Catherine Harris

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For information about the HUDSON project please contact Dr. Catherine Harris