Underwater Caterpillar Profiler

Abstract

An underwater caterpillar vehicle has been designed and developed to profile along the beach and shoreface. This prototype is employed for zones that are unsuitable to study through bathymetry or manual measurements. The system consists of a metallic structure propelled by two caterpillar tracks. An electronic accelerometer and a GPS receiver measure the profile data. These components provide the seabed slope and the traveled distance along a path. The data are recorded locally and transmitted to a host computer with a radio modem, conforming a wireless duplex link, which is also used for controlling the vehicle and reporting the status. The profiler system has been tested in several zones in the Pacific Coast of the Baja California Peninsula, Mexico and the results were compared with an Electronic Total Station. Based on the obtained results, the underwater caterpillar system evinces to be a reliable profiler option.