SeaBED AUV Gets First 3-D Images Under Antarctica

摘要

Research teams from the U.S., U.K. and Australia published results of a successful test of an autonomous underwater sonar vehicle, named SeaBED, which mapped the underside of previously inaccessible sea ice floes off the Antarctic Peninsula. Development of the six-foot, 440-pound twin-hull vessel and its deployment were funded by the National Science Foundation to advance maritime remote sensors in extreme environments, according to a foundation press release. Typically, oceanographic survey instruments look down from surface vessels at the seafloor, but SeaBED is designed with upward-facing sonar that creates three-dimensional maps of the ice.