The Benthic Mapping and Sampling Sled was first developed for MBARI’s MiniROV as a platform for manipulation and sampling in remote areas of the Arctic seafloor. After successful Arctic deployments, this configuration was adapted for a wider range of locations and missions. The sled now carries the full PoMS sensor suite, adding seafloor mapping capabilities while retaining its existing capabilities: arm manipulation, push-cores, drawers for sample collection, and a CT probe. 

The CoMPAS Lab has deployed this configuration in two expeditions. The first deployment was during the 2025 ARA16B expedition with the Korea Polar Research Institute aboard the icebreaker research vessel Araon in the Canadian Beaufort Sea. Known at the time as the Arctic Sled, the PoMS sensor suite enabled the expedition team to study the dynamic geology of the Arctic seafloor. A March 2026 expedition aboard MBARI’s R/V David Packard to Sur Ridge, offshore of Central California, leveraged the PoMS sensor suite for high-resolution mapping of deep-sea coral sponge ecosystems. 

The sled mounts to MiniROV’s lower frame via a standard mechanical interface, with no modifications to the host vehicle.

Dimensions:

• Length: 4.6 feet (1.4 meters)
• Width: 3 feet (0.9 meters)
• Height: 1 foot (0.3 meters)

Visual sensing:

• MBARI-designed housing with Luxonis OAK-D modules providing downward- and forward-looking monochrome stereo pairs and a color center camera, illuminated by DeepSea Power & Light LED SeaLite lights, sized for a nominal survey altitude of 2–3 meters
• Forward- and downward-looking Laserglow Technologies’ green laser-sheet projectors enable millimeter-scale 3D reconstruction as a complement to photogrammetry

Acoustic sensing:

• Blueprint Oculus M1200d FLS for acoustic imaging
• Norbit WBMS MBES for centimeter-scale bathymetry
• Waterlinked 3D-15 multibeam imaging sonar for close-range 3D views

Navigation:

• VectorNav VN110/VN100 Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and Attitude Heading Reference System (AHRS)
• Waterlinked A125 DVL
• Valeport ultraP depth sensor

• Without a high-end inertial navigation system (INS), this configuration has relied on the layered navigation architecture of the PoMS itself for wayfinding:

• • State-of-the-art calibration algorithms provide a survey-grade inertial baseline

• • Visual SLAM bounds the accumulated drift

• • USBL fixes provide external aiding
  • All of these sources are fused through an Extended Kalman Filter

Sampling

• Robotic arm equipped with a conductivity and temperature (CT) probe
• Swing arm to hold up to eight push-cores

The Mapping Sled is a configuration fully purposed for benthic mapping, without any sampling or manipulation capabilities. It was deployed for several surveys with MBARI’s MiniROV in Monterey Bay in 2024. It mounts to the MiniROV’s lower frame through a standard mechanical interface with no modifications to the host vehicle, and connects to the surface via a single PoE interface housing. This configuration has now been integrated with the Benthic Mapping and Sampling Sled.

Dimensions:

• Length: 4.6 feet (1.4 meters)
• Width: 3 feet (0.9 meters)
• Height: 1 foot (0.3 meters)

Visual sensing: 

• Downward-looking stereo pair of DeepSea Power & Light SmartSight machine-vision cameras, illuminated by eight SeaLite LED lights
• Laserglow Technologies green-laser sheet projector enables millimeter-scale 3D reconstruction to complement photogrammetry
• Custom hyperspectral housing accommodating an Ocean Insight SR spectrometer, Arducam stereo cameras, and an Open HSI push-broom camera capturing 512 spectral bands across 512 spatial pixels, enabling hyperspectral data cubes when fused with the navigation solution

Acoustic sensing: 

• Tritech Gemini 720is FLS
• Norbit WBMS MBES 

Navigation: 

• VectorNav VN110/VN100 Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU)s and Attitude Heading Reference System (AHRS)
• Waterlinked A125 DVL
• Valeport ultraP depth sensor

• Without a high-end inertial navigation system (INS), this configuration has relied on the layered navigation architecture of the PoMS itself for wayfinding:

• • State-of-the-art calibration algorithms provide a survey-grade inertial baseline

• • Visual SLAM bounds the accumulated drift

• • USBL fixes provide external aiding
  • All of these sources are fused through an Extended Kalman Filter

The ROV SuBastian imaging system is a compact adaptation of PoMS, custom-designed for deployment on Schmidt Ocean Institute’s ROV SuBastian during the Unexplored Seamounts of the Salas and Gómez Ridge expedition aboard R/V Falkor (too) in March 2024. 

The system was installed on the main sled of ROV SuBastian via a standard mechanical interface within hours of departure, sharing the ROV with sample-collection payloads and robotic arms without interfering with the multi-group goals for each survey. 

Rather than carrying its own navigation suite, PoMS leveraged the vehicle’s onboard INS directly with no reconfiguration required, demonstrating the system’s flexibility across platforms with different navigation infrastructures. 

Low-altitude surveys of the Mayday Guyot produced photogrammetric reconstructions at 3.2 millimeters per pixel, documenting the fine-scale spatial distribution and morphology of benthic communities at resolutions not previously available for this region.

Dimensions:

• Length: 2.3 feet (0.7 meters)
• Width: 1.3 feet (0.4 meters)
• Height: 0.7 feet (0.2 meters)

Visual Sensing:

• Downward-looking stereo pair of DeepSea Power & Light SmartSight machine-vision cameras, illuminated by SeaLite LED lights
• Downward-looking Laserglow Technologies’ green laser-sheet projector
• OpenHSI hyperspectral camera for hyperspectral benthic assessment

Acoustic Sensing:

• Tritech Gemini 720is FLS mounted on the vehicle’s core structure

Navigation:

• Core’s vehicle Sonardyne Sprint INS
• Waterlinked A125 DVL
• VectorNav VN110/VN100 Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU)s and Attitude Heading Reference System (AHRS)

The ROV Ventana Drawer is a modular configuration of PoMS designed for continuous development and testing during day cruises in Monterey Bay aboard MBARI’s ROV Ventana. The system consists of a small plate that matches the footprint of the ROV’s instrument drawer, allowing it to be retracted during deployment and extended during operations without interfering with the vehicle’s standard configuration.

The drawer serves as a reconfigurable base built around the PoE interface housing, with sensors selected to match the goals of each dive. Depending on the mission, it can carry in-house-designed Luxonis OAK-D housings, an FLS, a 3D imaging sonar, a laser-sheet projector, an MBES, strobes, or an event camera, among other options. For navigation, the drawer can operate with its own IMU and DVL, leverage the onboard INS on ROV Ventana directly, or run both simultaneously, using the INS as a benchmark for navigation algorithm development and validation.

Measuring 1.2 feet (0.36 meters) long, 0.8 feet (0.24 meters) wide, and 0.8 feet (0.25 meters) tall, it mounts one of the front drawers on ROV Ventana, allowing it to retract the sensors for deployment and to extract them for operations, without any modifications to the core vehicle.