By Innovasea. BOSTON – Innovasea, a global leader in technologically advanced aquatic solutions for aquaculture and fish tracking, today announced groundbreaking new technology that will enable fish researchers to retrieve their field data from shore.
The technological breakthrough comes in the form of a new module for Teledyne’s G3 Gliders that allows the autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to be dispatched out to Innovasea’s VR4-UWM underwater receivers to offload data.
“This revolutionary new capability will make data retrieval much easier for scientists, who are using AUVs more and more as part of their research,” said Mark Jollymore, president of Innovasea. “Rather than having to charter a boat and spend hours traveling from receiver to receiver, our new module and its sophisticated software let researchers send out a glider to collect data from all their receivers in a fraction of the time.”
Chartering boats is one of the largest areas of expense for fish researchers. Using Teledyne G3 Gliders equipped with Innovasea’s new data retrieval technology will help researchers drastically reduce costs, cut down on boat time and avoid potentially dangerous conditions on the water.
Teledyne’s Slocum-style gliders are piloted remotely or can run pre-programmed routes based on GPS coordinates. They can travel at speeds up to 2 knots and can dive to depths of 1,000 meters – and they can be used in a variety of settings, including shallow water and beneath ice.
“We are pleased to be working with Innovasea to add this capability to Slocum gliders,” said Clara Hulburt, Teledyne Webb Research’s APEX product line manager. “The variety of sensors integrated on these gliders means that this robot will be collecting sensor data while also retrieving data from the VR4-UWM receivers. This partnership continues to improve environmental capability whilst reducing cost.“
Innovasea’s VR4-UWM receiver is a passive acoustic listening station whose batteries last more than six years, making it perfect for long-term migratory studies. It can communicate with nearby vessels via an acoustic modem, so it doesn’t need to be retrieved and redeployed, another costly and labor-intensive process.
In addition to detecting tagged fish swimming within range, the VR4-UWM can also store environmental data from Innovasea’s aquaMeasure sensors, including dissolved oxygen, blue-green algae and chlorophyll.
The Real-Time Aquatic Ecosystem Observation Network, in collaboration with the Great Lakes Acoustic Telemetry Observation System, will be the first to receive the specially equipped gliders from Teledyne later this summer and will use them in their ongoing research in the Great Lakes.
“This is a game changer for servicing our deep water acoustic telemetry receivers in the Great Lakes, a logistically difficult and costly area to work but so important for understanding fish ecology in these large lakes,” said Aaron Fisk, science director at RAEON and a professor at the University of Windsor.
