Acoustical ocean ecology in the era of the robot revolution

Abstract

Over the past decade, the field of oceanography has experienced a robotic revolution. A proliferation of autonomous surface and underwater platforms is providing new ways to obtain environmental, chemical, and biological data. Bioacoustical oceanographic sensors are increasingly being added to the payload of these platforms to provide increased spatial and temporal coverage as well as access to unexplored areas. Integrating relatively large, high power draw sensors like scientific echosounders is a challenge, however, and each platform type and size have specific tradeoffs with respect to these payloads. I will present case studies employing echsounders from autonomous surface vessels to study the deep scattering layer, a deep-diving, short endurance autonomous underwater vehicle for examining bathypelagic squid, and a moderate endurance underwater glider for examining the relationship between forage species and their environment. These studies illustrate the challenges of integration of echsosounder payloads into platforms as well as the opportunities of robotic approaches for bioacoustical oceanography. Finally, a recent experiment integrating nine robotic platforms and a cabled observatory will highlight how the integration of various sensor technologies and platforms can be used to study dynamic biological processes like diel vertical migration in the ocean.