Sampling sea surfaces with SESAMO: An Autonomous craft for the study of sea-air interactions

摘要

The sea surface autonomous modular (SESAMO) catamaran was satisfactorily' exploited for sampling the sea-surface micro-layer and immediate subsurface in the Terra Nova Bay area of the Ross Sea during the XIX Italian expedition to Antarctica in January-February 2004. The SESAMO prototype robot, designed to collect data and samples for the study of the sea-air interface, is the result of the synergy between the robotics group of Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche-Istituto di Studi sui Sistemi Intelligenti per 1" Automazione (CNR-ISSIA), Genoa branch, and the scientific end users of Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche-Istituto per la Dinamica dei Processi Ambientali (CNR-IDPA, or Institute for the Dynamics of Environmental Processes) in the framework of a project of the Italian National Program of Research in Antarctica (PNRA). At sea, operations showed that a relatively simple robot could satisfactorily work in a natural, outdoor environment, dramatically facilitating the job of the human operator.