New underwater device making waves for scientists and military
A University of Massachusetts Dartmouth marine science professor and a city company will begin work this month on a data-gathering underwater device that can give researchers video along with chemical and acoustic information - all wirelessly and at a far cheaper price than in the past.
The device, called H-PUP, short for hybrid programmable underwater profiler, is about 3-feet long, a foot in diameter, weighs 30 pounds and is far more versatile than older, bulkier models.
"It's a simple idea," said Louis Goodman, a professor at UMass-Dartmouth's School for Marine Science and Technology's marine turbulence laboratory. "You change the weight distribution to tilt or move around." He called the device "revolutionary."
The H-PUP can also stay very still, he said, allowing for better video and more accurate measurements. Unlike existing profilers, the H-PUP will be able to operate both vertically and horizontally, and is light enough to be carried onboard.
Goodman was notified about a month ago of a $40,000 Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center grant that will help pay for the one-year project. Goodman will work with city-based Brooke Ocean Technology USA, a company that designs and builds ocean device systems.
Roger Race, the Brooke Ocean general manager, said from Washington, D.C., that people at the convention he was attending were talking about how the demand for autonomous underwater vehicles "will continue to grow and grow and grow." Brooke Ocean will sell the H-PUPs for $10,000 to $12,000 to interested universities, energy companies and the military.
In comparison, SMAST now has an autonomous underwater vehicle that costs about $750,000. The H-PUP is a fraction of the size of the largest models.
Goodman, who served with the Navy for 35 years in new technology efforts, said he sees "a great expansion of its usage into the general marine science and engineering community."
A recent British study indicated that the industry the H-PUP will enter will one day reach the billion-dollar range, Race said. "We fully intend to build and market this new hybrid vehicle to the global market," he said. "As our company grows, we hope to be able to continue to create more new jobs in New Bedford."
The H-PUP will be used in relatively shallow ocean waters, about 300 feet.
Researchers can use the video camera to see the fish population, the military can use an acoustic device to find if any enemy objects are in the area, and environmental groups can find ocean temperatures, currents, salinity, chemicals or nutrients.
"I'm hoping that this is the next generation of measurements," Goodman said. The device allows for a much greater degree of mobility than current ones, he said, but it's not perfect - yet, anyway. Its lighter size can require more power to move around and is more at the whim of the ocean currents.
The idea for the H-PUP came from Goodman's desire to be first, he said. He compared it to the start of the personal computer when companies realized the technology was there. "What one has to do is look for applications for environmental, fisheries and military problems," he said. "And then see if you can match new developments with those problems."
Work on the prototype H-PUP will being in a few weeks and should be complete by this summer. Race expects the device can reach the market in a year or two. Goodman and Race said they didn't know of anything in existence like the H-PUP.
"It's very important that they get smaller, cheaper and easier to use," Race said. "That's the niche H-PUP will fill."
E-mail Grant Welker at gwelker@heraldnews.com.