SeaWASP: A Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull Autonomous Platform for Shallow Water Mapping

An innovative shallow water bathymetry platform is being developed by students at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and Santa Clara University (SCU). Marine habitat geography, ecosystem, and health are analyzed through bathymetry data. Large manned vessels that may, in shallow, semi-navigable waters, pose a danger to themselves and the environment and that are costly to operate are typical current shallow water measurement methods. Small vessels require more computation and instrumentation for accurate bathymetric data processing, since they are prone to shallow water waves, tides, and current disturbances. SeaWASP, the SCU/MBARI autonomous surface vessel, is designed for safe and stable operation without significant manned support in waters as shallow as one meter so that high quality, cost effective bathymetric maps can be produced. Several key design innovations are introduced in the SeaWASP design for a safe, stable, and inexpensive platform for high quality map production. The craft is less prone to disturbances due to a high mass-to-damping ratio, a small waterplane area, and a submerged dual hull in the small waterplane area twin hull design features. The boat is navigated along desirable trajectories through platform level configuration planning and control algorithms, autonomous control, and precision sensing in order to implement low-cost unpiloted operations and to support efficient map generation. In concert with GPS sensors and Doppler Velocity Loggers, multi-beam sonar is used to measure bathymetry. Lake Tahoe, Steven's Creek Reservoir, and Elkhorn Slough, all in California, were among several open water test environments that the vessel has been successfully operated in. Currently in its final integration and test stages, the vessel is scheduled for its first major science mission in 2009 at Orcas Island in Washington State's San Juan Island. Final deployment will be as one multi-system remote observatory element at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) Kasitsna Bay Laboratory in Alaska. The partnership that has developed SeaWASP includes NOAA's West Coast and Polar Regions Undersea Research Center; University of Alaska, Fairbanks; MBARI; and SCU.