3D Particle detection and characterization
Project Manager: Paul Chandler
Lead Scientists: Charlie Paull/Peter Brewer/John Ryan

This project is a one-year technology investigation, with a  long-term objective to develop a family of highly capable and cost-effective acoustic and optics based remote imaging systems, useful for particle, bubble, and organism detection and characterization. 

These systems will be designed to meet the specific needs of MBARI scientists and the oceanographic community at large. Interested scientists have expressed need for tools to assess three-dimensional particle dynamics over time (4D), vertical flux rates, particle size and mass, gas efflux rates from bottom sediments, saturation levels within bottom sediments, micro-streaming, and inter-organism relationships, for example. Remote sensing is often necessary to ensure that instrumentation does not perturb the measured parameter through, for example, turbulent flow around the instrument, or by altering the behavior of the organisms of interest. The first year’s effort, proposed here, will focus on the investigation of 4D acoustic imaging systems. It will investigate design options, work to better understand scientific need, specify high performance designs, and propose an instrumentation infrastructure with which cost effective development of specific designs can be accomplished. The effort will focus on literature searches, conversations with scientists at MBARI and elsewhere, innovation, design, and simulation. It will generate a report detailing a development infrastructure for these instruments and a proposal for further R&D on a specific instrument, selected for its broadly applicable scientific value and its cost/benefit ratio.