Harbor Branch Gets $2m Navy Grant
Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute received a $2m grant from the U.S. Navy to develop a robotic laser system to identify mines and other threats in ports and coastal waters. The system to be developed at Harbor Branch would involve a group of underwater robots scanning the water with laser beams and sending information to shore or to a ship above. According to project leader Fraser Dalgleish, an assistant research professor at Harbor Branch, the technology would allow images of much larger areas of the ocean than are now possible.
High-Tech Survey of Rare Deep Coral Reefs
The Waitt Institute for Discovery and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have joined forces to launch the Catalyst Program, making available for the first time a versatile and highly portable deep-sea tool kit and operations team, which can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world. This unprecedented collaboration features the Waitt Institute's two newly built Hydroid REMUS 6000 Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), which can explore depths of up to 6000 meters, or 3.7 miles, below the ocean's surface. These innovative multi-sensor platforms are equipped with high-tech survey instruments capable of recording critical oceanographic data, photo-imaging deep-sea features, and producing detailed sonar maps of the ocean floor.
EBDG Supports BBSR’s New Research Vessel
Elliott Bay Design Group designed the modifications for the R/V Bank of Bermuda Atlantic Explorer; a 168-ft. research ship recently christened by the Bermuda Biological Station for Research (BBSR). Purchased as the R/V Seward Johnson from the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute by the non-profit BBSR, the vessel will be used in oceanographic research primarily off the coast of Bermuda; throughout the Atlantic Ocean and into the Caribbean. EBDG provided engineering guidance during the extensive modification. Work included the relocation and refit of the existing pilot house to serve as a new aft-facing scientific operations center; as well as the design, construction and installation of a new wheelhouse atop the scientific operations center.
