Portal de Cartagena
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The Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT) leads a European project to create a fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles to detect oil spills in the deep sea.
UPCT underwater robots and universities of Porto and Zagreb Cyprus this week made a drill in waters of Croatia.
The aim of the project, called 'Underwater Robotics ready for Oil Spills' (URready4OS), under the coordination of Professor UPCT Javier Gilabert, co-director of the Laboratory of Underwater Vehicles Politécnica de Cartagena, funded by the Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection of the European Commission, is to have a fleet of intelligent vehicles trained rapid response to oil spills in the deep sea.
"It's about being better prepared for disasters like the one in the Gulf of Mexico four years ago," says Gilabert.
Researchers have since early this year working on a protocol for joint action and to implement it in Croatian waters discharges simulating cross rhodamine (a harmless reddish tint) to test sensors and undersea vehicles work capacity and communication between robots.
"Until now there was a lack of a tool able to detect oil spill in depth and determine its size and nature.
With this type of vehicle shall be settled this problem thanks, among other things, some sensors on submarines, "says Gilabert, adding that the fleet will be also composed of unmanned aerial vehicles and surface.
The drill will also serve to test the complementarity of different unmanned vehicles when locating the focus of submarine fuel spills and transmit information underwater buoys and aircraft throwing information in real time to operational command post .
Cartagena will be in 2015 the scene of a new mock spill detection with which it will be finished tune the protocol and the fleet of autonomous vehicles that have Europe to react quickly to potential disasters such as occurred at the time the Exxon Valdez and Prestige.
Source: UPCT
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