Underwater Caterpillar Profiler

Juan Francisco Villa-Medina, Joaquin Gutierrez, Victor Manuel Gomez-Munoz, Miguel Angel Porta-Gandara

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

An underwater caterpillar vehicle has been designed and developed to profile along the beach and shoreface. This prototype is employed for zones that are unsuitable to study through bathymetry or manual measurements. The system consists of a metallic structure propelled by two caterpillar tracks. An electronic accelerometer and a GPS receiver measure the profile data. These components provide the seabed slope and the traveled distance along a path. The data are recorded locally and transmitted to a host computer with a radio modem, conforming a wireless duplex link, which is also used for controlling the vehicle and reporting the status. The profiler system has been tested in several zones in the Pacific Coast of the Baja California Peninsula, Mexico and the results were compared with an Electronic Total Station. Based on the obtained results, the underwater caterpillar system evinces to be a reliable profiler option.

Original languageEnglish
Article number9481115
JournalIEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement
Volume70
DOIs
StatePublished - 2021
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Beach profile
  • remotely controlled vehicle
  • shoreface bathymetry
  • slope measurement
  • underwater profiler

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Underwater Caterpillar Profiler'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this