SAMBA : Voice of the Ocean

Voice of the Ocean

Nyheter

Vill du ha stöd i
din forskning?

Med havet som uppdragsgivare

Smart Autonomous Monitoring of the Baltic Sea.

The Baltic Sea is an integral component of the lives of those living around it. It influences our climate and weather, and its ecosystems host important living resources and biodiversity and its environment has been under threat and its ecological status damaged by our development for nearly 100 years.

VOTO’s first project, “Smart Autonomous Monitoring of the Baltic Sea”,

is a collaboration between VOTO and Gothenburg University. The project seeks to fundamentally change the landscape of ocean observation in the Baltic Sea by collecting the largest, and highest resolution, data set of the Baltic Sea, from chemistry and physics at the molecular level, to weather, fisheries and ocean functions across the Baltic Sea.

Oceangliders (underwater)

are rechargeable instruments which remain at sea for months at a time, measuring biological, chemical and physical metrics every second. These ocean gliders swim slowly across the Baltic, from the surface to the seafloor building high-definition 3- dimensional pictures of these critical environmental parameters.

Sailbuoys™ (surface)

on the other hand, stay on the surface, powered using renewable solar panels. Sailbuoys are state-of-the-art vessels that can autonomously sail around the oceans collecting oceanographic (temperature, salinity, currents) and meteorological (wind, air temperature) data. We control them via satellite and the vessels send real time data every 5 minutes to us back on land. By remaining on the surface and using solar panels, Sailbuoys travel faster than ocean gliders, be deployed for months at a time and carry more advanced sensors.

Fishtrackingsystems (stationary/mobile)

are deployed on the sea bed for years at a time and track the location of important tagged fish. VOTO together with partner are building capacity so that our autonomous systems, such as the Sailbuoys, can communicate with the fish tracking systems, and relay the data back in real time rather than having to wait years for the recovery survey. The Sailbuoys are also equipped with a fishfinding sonar that can detect schools of fish that has not been tagged. These systems will allow better, quicker, and more effective response when managing fisheries.

Together,

these innovative platforms obtain observations that we would traditionally collect fromtime-consuming and expensive ship surveys at a fraction of the cost. They function autonomously, but can be remotely piloted by the project team, to survey the Baltic Sea in intelligent and adaptive ways, reacting to new discoveries and targeting key ocean features. Themajority of the data collected is transmitted back to our team of experts in real-time so that it can be redirected to national and international agencies to inform weather forecasting services and computer simulations of the Baltic Sea.

Pairing Sailbuoys on the surface with gliders under water

is really unique/novel because we are able to observe the ocean and atmosphere system as a whole. Such state-of-the-art systems are really a first for Swedish waters and are set to change the way we think about collecting observations and how we understand our environment. We are extremely excited to grow this technological capability in Sweden and the Nordic region. This is crucial to understanding our entire ocean environment better.

SAMBA, Smart Autonomous Monitoring of the Baltic Sea

Varför VOTO?

Stiftelsen Voice of the Ocean
Address: Rydboholmsgård, 184 94 Åkersberga

hello@voiceoftheocean.org

Ola Oskarsson
Projektledare Ocean Knowledge

ola.o@voiceoftheocean.org

Robert Westerberg
COO

robert.westerberg@voiceoftheocean.org

Johan Candert
Projektledare

johan.candert@voiceoftheocean.org

Fanny Senke
Kommunikation & Projektledare

fanny.senke@voiceoftheocean.org

Niklas Nilsson
Projektledare Utbildning

niklas.nilsson@voiceoftheocean.org