
INTIFANTE Sea Trial 2000 (INTIFANTE'00)
Tróia, 9 - 29 October 2000
PRAXIS XXI contracts
INFANTE - 3/3.1/TPAR/2042/95
INTIMATE - 2/2.1/MAR/1698/95 (ending)
ATOMS - PDCTM/P/MAR/15296/1999 (starting)
António Pascoal
antonio@isr.ist.utl.pt
ISR - Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa, Portugal
Emanuel F. Coelho
oceanografia@hidrografico.pt
Instituto Hidrográfico, Lisboa, Portugal
Sérgio M. Jesus
sjesus@ualg.pt
CINTAL - Universidade do Algarve, Faro, Portugal
Paola Picco,
picco@estosf.santateresa.enea.it
ENEA - Italy
Brief description
The INTIFANTE'00 sea trial took place from 9 - 29 October, 2000
in the continental platform near Setúbal, west coast of
Portugal. The research vessel involved was NRP DOM CARLOS I from the
Portuguese Navy and run by the Instituto Hidrografico. INTIFANTE'00 was
composed of three parts:
Environmental Survey from 16 to 29 October,
INFANTE'00 from 9 to 13 October,
INTIMATE'00 from 16 to 20 October.
Environmental Survey
During this part environmental data such as, CTD, geoacoustic,
seismic, bathymetry and currents was gathered in the designated
area to support the acoustic measurements to be performed under INFANTE
and INTIMATE.
INFANTE'00 Sea Trial
Objectives: this part of the sea trial served for testing
underwater acoustic communications
systems and to test the navigation system of a remote controlled
catamaran.
It involved deploying transmission modules in the sea bottom and
communication either to the surface and/or to an high-frequency array
of
receivers.
Scenario:the NRP Dom Carlos I deployed the bottom and surface
modules for
testing underwater communication algorithms and methods. She also
deployed the catamaran (DELFIM) for autonomous navigation testing.
During two days off-vertical transmissions were performed from bottom
module
to a surface suspended array of receivers transmitting received signals
via radio back to NRP Dom Carlos I for monitoring, checking and backup.
INTIMATE'00 Sea Trial
Objectives: this sea trial followed previous experiments (see INTIMATE'96 ) and has the objective of
determining internal tides by
means of acoustic tomographic measurements. Additional objectives
during this sea trial were to acquire data to support highly
range-dependent
source tracking and tomographic inversion with random signals (either
computer generated or ship induced noise).
Scenario: NRP Dom Carlos I deployed a sound source and
transmitted signals to a moored vertical array and listened to received
signals via an RF link. The sound source performed a number of
geometries around the receiving array. The sound source was loaned by
courtesy of SACLANT Undersea Research Centre, La Spezia, Italy.
Cruise Report
Starting was delayed for 4 days due to adverse weather conditions.
INFANTE has completed one event out of 3 due to equipment failure (lack
of communication between bottom and surface modules). DELFIM catamaran
deployment was accomplished during the third week. INTIMATE objectives
have reached 100% completion with over 50 GBytes of data acquired.
Environmental survey tasks have been only partially achieved due to the
redraw of NRP Almeida Carvalho due to equipment failure. In order to
achieve a sufficiently accurate oceanographic description of the area,
NRP D. Carlos I performed extra oceanographic measurements with the
collaboration of Paola Picco from ENEA. Seismic and sidescan sonar
surveys were done during
the third week with success.
Some pictures
taken during the sea trial:
last update on April 20, 2001