Steps towards autonomy: From current measurements to underwater vehicles

Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, Wormley, 1976

Using Doppler sonar to measure speed of conveyor belt, MSc Birmingham, 1975

Underwater EM communication, Anglesey, 1970.

Gwyn Griffiths

gxg@noc.ac.uk

1976-84: At-sea Instrument Technician & Investigations of Sensor Performance

Neil Brown MkIII CTD

John Smithers Dr Peter Collar

John Swallow

Basic principles understood:Assessing performance

GRIFFITHS, G & COLLA R, P.G., 1980 Some comparative studies on electromagn etic sensor heads

in laminar and near turbulent flows in a towing tank , pp 323-329 in Oceans '80 , New Yor k

I.E.E.E.

1980:4-level Surface Following Current Meter

P.G. Collar, R.M. Carson and G. Griffiths, 1982. Measurement of near-surface current from a moored wave-slope follower. Deep Sea Research 30 (1): 63-75.

Oban 1982: The smooth and the rough

Oban 1983

Water depth30m

Near Loch Etive outflow

Shear between 0.1 and 0.4m most of the time. Wind <3m/s.

Shear disappears Day 315 & Day 319-320.5, with periods of stronger wind ~7m/s.

Oh for 4 CT sensors!

Speed cm/s

GRIFFITHS, G., 1983 Near shore trials of a four level surfac e-follo wing cur rent mete r, Insititute of

Oceanographic Sciences Internal Docum ent No. 178, 11pp + appendices .

1984-1988: 1MHz Self Contained ADCPMk1 Mk2 inc.

GP Sonar Receiver

Board set64k memory24 bit h’ware multiplierReal time clockCPU and I/O8-channel 8 bit ADC20channel 12 but ADC

Solid state logger2MByte EPROM card

CPU-Memory-I/O

GRIFFITHS, G. 1990 A microco mputer syste m for use in oceanographic instruments. Unde rwater

Technology, 15(4) , 3-10 .

Other Applications of the Board Set

May 1985 Irish Sea Deployment

GRIFFITHS, G., 1986 Intercomparison of an acoustic Doppler current profiler with conventional instruments and a tidal flow model. Proc. IEEE 3rd Working Conference

on Current Measurement.

Acoustic Backscatter from an ADCP

30-day hand coloured contour section in 1986 of acoustic backscatter at the Celtic Sea shelf edge in the upper 20m in 186m water depth.

Towards biological interpretation

April 1993

Change from engineer and applied scientist to

Head Ocean Instrumentation Group

The true fathers of the Autosub Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Dr Brian McCartney Dr Nic Flemming Dr Stuart Rusby

1984-1986at the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, Wormley

People of Influence

Prof. John Woods Don Lennard

1986-1994

One Vision: To gather data within ocean cavities beneath floating ice sheets.

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Capable Project Leaders

Dr Peter Collar Nick Millard Steve McPhail

1988-1995 1995-2005 2005-

Core Engineering Team

Peter Stevenson Miles Pebody Andy Webb James Perrett Maaten Furlong

Technical Support

Andy Kevin Mark Dave JimStaskiewicz Saw Squires White Wyatt

The Reviewers

Sir John Cadogan Sir John (later Lord) Krebs Prof John Shepherd

John Steele

Principal Investigators

David Smeed Andy Brierley Peter Wadhams Adrian Jenkins Karen Heywood

Julian Dowdeswell Chris German George Voulgaris Alex Cunningham Steve Thorpe

And others …

Biomass g m-2

First Autosub Under Sea Ice Experiment: 2001

Data courtesy A Brierley, P Fernandes and M Brandon

Autosub Under Ice Programme Shelf Ice

Formed from snow falling over Antarctica

Floating extensions of the continental ice sheet

Fate is biggest uncertainty for sea level rise

Thickness from 100 m to over 1500 m

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The Vision delivered: 2009.

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Temp (˚C)

Closing thoughts

My role in fostering major programmes for autonomous vehicle expeditions.

Initiating, despite opposition, new methods for risk of loss estimates for AUVs in polar seas.

The formation in April 2012 of the Marine Autonomous and Robotic Systems (MARS) facility at Southampton, with 3 Autosubs and 11 gliders.

A major capital investment from the Natural Environment Research Council to secure the future of MARS.