Page 21: of Marine Technology Magazine (Mar/Apr 2022)

CASE STUDY SMALL AUTONOMOUS LANDERS

FOR STUDYING THE COMMUNITY ECOLOGY OF

NEARSHORE SUBMARINE CANYONS

By Ashley M. Nicoll, PhD candidate, Stony Brook University &

Kevin Hardy, Global Ocean Design LLC, MTR Columnist ander Lab will routinely feature ? eld work by research- ecology, we adapted two autonomous lander systems: a Global ers from around the world using ocean landers. We be- Ocean Design LLC 2-sphere Picolander for exploratory deploy- gin with the 2021 Scripps Institution of Oceanography/ ments (< 3 days) and a Global Ocean Design LLC 3-sphere

LUCSD work of Ashley Nicoll, currently a PhD student at Nanolander for longer deployments (> 1 week). Both landers

Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, Long Island, New York. were out? tted with a novel self-recording digital camera and

Ashley’s full Master’s Thesis paper, “Nicoll Thesis 2021.pdf”, LED lights system plus a Zebra-Tech environmental sensor to may be found at . deployments were completed ranging in duration from 1-13

Nearshore submarine canyons are unique features that bring days at depths of 90-500 m, allowing assessment of how sea- the deep sea close to shore, potentially functioning as highways ? oor community diversity and composition changed with depth connecting shallow and deep-sea ecosystems. To study their and time of day.

Figure 2.

Image credit: Kevin Hardy, Global Ocean Design LLC (a) Diagram of the Picolander DOV JEAN. 1) Spectra lifting bale; 2) ~25cm polyamide control sphere containing the timed-release system; 3) oil-? lled

LED lights; 4) ~25cm polyamide camera sphere containing a GoPro Hero 4, CamDo Blink time lapse controller, V50 Voltaic Systems battery, 16mAh

LiPo battery, and LiPo battery management system (BMS); 5) 1.5-lb counterweights x 2 sides; 6) 25-lbs expendable iron anchor; 7) chain connecting weights to the burnwires; 8) burnwire release and mount x 2 sides; 9) surface recovery ? ag; 10) Zebra-Tech Moana pressure and temperature sensor (fastened to the interior of the frame). (b) Diagram of the Nanolander DOV BEEBE components from Gallo et al. (2020): 1) Spectra lifting bale; 2)

HDPE centerplate; 3) ~25 cm polyamide spheres stacked top, middle and bottom, top is the command sphere, middle has 32mAh LiPo battery, and bottom is the camera; 4) sphere retainer; 5) auxiliary ~18 cm ? otation sphere; 6) oil-? lled LED lights; 7) Seabird MicroCAT-ODO in the lower payload bay; 8) central ? berglass frame; 9) stabilizing counterweight; 10) anchor slip ring; 11) 40-lbs expendable iron anchor; 12) burnwire release and mount x 2 sides; 13) Edgetech hydrophone for acoustic command and tracking; 14) HDPE side panels; and 15) surface recovery ? ag. Not shown: drop arm on front. (c) To scale images of the landers for size comparison. www.marinetechnologynews.com 21

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