Abstract
Autonomous Underwater Profiling Drifter (AUPD) is developed by National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Chennai, India, for the vertical profiling of the ocean. AUPD is a free-drifting profiling platform for near real-time in-situ observation of the upper 2000 m of the ocean column. It measures conductivity and temperature profiles with reference to depth. The AUPD transmits measured data through ARGOS satellite Platform Terminal Transmitter (PTT) to ARGOS regional centre as per the requirement of the International ARGO program. The AUPD ascends or descends due change in buoyancy (±250 cm3). While on sea surface (to transmit the profile data), the position of the float is derived using the Doppler shift method with an accuracy of ~100 m. NIOT developed AUPD and deployed in the Arabian Sea in 2013–2015. The AUPD is ballasted for a pre-deployment depth of 2000 m and pre-programmed for a typical profiling cycle of 2 days. The AUPD is designed with 32 bit Atmel micro-controller and a lithium battery bank provides power. It has endurance for 150 profiles. AUPD float is suitable to fulfil the demand for profiling floats for International Argo Program. This paper is focused on the development of AUPD. The paper also discusses testing and field deployment of AUPD float.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to MOES for funding the development work and the staff of Ocean Electronics and Deep Sea Technologies group for their support. The authors are also thankful to Dr M A Atmanand, Former Director NIOT and Dr G A Ramdass, Director NIOT, for their support towards the presented work. Authors acknowledge INCOIS, Hyderabad, for doing the data quality check for data received from AUPD system. Authors also acknowledge Coriolis data management team for providing WMO datasets on request.
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Muthuvel P is responsible for design, development, qualification tests and field data collection. Sarojani Maurya is responsible for qualification tests, field data collection, analysis and validation of the data and drafting the original manuscript. Tata Sudhakar is responsible for managing the project and overall support.
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Communicated by C Gnanaseelan
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Muthuvel, P., Maurya, S. & Sudhakar, T. Development of Autonomous Underwater Profiling Drifter (AUPD) and field results. J Earth Syst Sci 132, 11 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-022-02029-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-022-02029-2