Spilled Oil Tracking Autonomous Buoy System

Abstract

Spilled oil damages not only the ocean environment but also the regional economy. In order to minimize such damages we are now developing a spilled oil tracking autonomous buoy system. The buoys used in this system are expected to send their location, and the meteorological and oceanographic data around them, to the land base in real-time while they drift with spilled oil. In the case that the buoy detaches from the spilled oil by external forces, it must be capable of detecting and tracking the spilled oil autonomously. In this paper, we first describe the concept of this system. This is followed by the development of two kinds of oil-detecting sensors installed on the buoy: a contact sensor and a non-contact sensor. The efficiencies of these sensors were verified by carrying out various water tank experiments. The buoy tracks spilled oil with descending and ascending procedures by controlling its buoyancy and movable wings. The developed control algorithm was validated with some water tank experiments using a simple buoy model. Finally, we carried out field experiments, such as data measurements and autonomous tracking experiments, using a new buoy model equipped with oil detecting sensors, GPS and an anemometer. The results of field experiments show the efficiency of this system.