Page 21: of Marine Technology Magazine (January 2013)
Subsea Vehicle Report: Unmanned Underwater System
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as well as imaging recording instru-ments that were at the cutting edge of oceanographic research for that time. His instruments used light and sound and were used in many application of ocean research. Edgerton?s area of ex- pertise involved the precise control of high-energy short pulses. These were used in stroboscopes, modular switches for atom bombs, and high speed ashes. These were then applied to the problems faced by underwater acoustic waves. By improving and shortening the sound pulse length he was able to improve resolution. His acoustic based tools in-cluded side scan sonar, sub bottom pro- lers and pingers. Because the cost of operating in the ocean environment was high, expeditions often had overlapping scienti c missions. He worked with a number of explorers including Jacques- Yves Cousteau who approached Edg- erton to collaborate on acquiring deep-water images. In the mid-thirties Edgerton was ap- proached by an expert in biolumines- cence to photograph deep-sea biolumi-nescent sh. This led to his rst successful devel- opment of an underwater camera for oceanographic research through collab-oration with the Woods Hole Oceano- graphic Institute (WHOI). His systems included hand-held, deep-sea, stereo, elapsed time and silhouette. Lighting instruments developed by Edgerton in- cluded strobes for various submarine vehicles, and strobes for underwater cameras. Known to everyone as ?Doc? Edger- ton, he is considered a pioneer in a num-ber of areas including underwater pho- tography and marine technology. MTR recently talked with Dr. Kim Van- diver who is the Director of the Edger- ton Center at MIT. Dr. Vandiver worked with Edgerton as a graduate student at MIT in the early 1970s.What are some of the interest- ing earlier projects you were able to work on with Doc Edg- erton? Well I was his TA in 1972 -73 and that was in the midst of his prepara- tions for going out and looking for the Monitor. He was in and out of the lab building cameras and loosing cameras. On the rst dive down they lost a camera that got tangled on the wreck. They lost it and had to go back and retrieve it later. What was it like working with www.seadiscovery.com Marine Technology Reporter 21MTR #1 (18-33).indd 21MTR #1 (18-33).indd 211/30/2013 10:17:47 AM1/30/2013 10:17:47 AM