Success in Pico

10 Jul 2015
Mike Incze of NUWC deploying his Iver off of Pico island.
Mike and Scott transitioning to the deployment point for UAV/AUV message exchange off of Pico.
Manuel test flying his quadcopter near DOP housing on Faial.
Bruno and Sérgio supporting comms for the quadcopter test.
NTNU's hyper-spectral payload UAV flying on Pico island.
Launching from the football field in S. Mateus on Pico island.
Ok....not precisely how all UAVs are controlled. NTNU vehicle being controlled by Krzysztof.
Open ocean rendezvous. Visitors and officials arrive to see AUV deployment from the Águas Vivas.
João deploying a bathymetric LAUV for habitat mapping for Jorge Fontes from the Águas Vivas. Visitors from DOP, Portuguese Navy and the Government of the Azores look on.
João deploying a bathymetric LAUV for habitat mapping for Jorge Fontes from the Águas Vivas. Visitors from DOP, Portuguese Navy and the Government of the Azores look on.
João deploying a bathymetric LAUV for habitat mapping for Jorge Fontes from the Águas Vivas. Visitors from DOP, Portuguese Navy and the Government of the Azores look on.
João deploying a bathymetric LAUV for habitat mapping for Jorge Fontes from the Águas Vivas. Visitors from DOP, Portuguese Navy and the Government of the Azores look on.
João deploying a bathymetric LAUV for habitat mapping for Jorge Fontes from the Águas Vivas. Visitors from DOP, Portuguese Navy and the Government of the Azores look on.
João deploying a bathymetric LAUV for habitat mapping for Jorge Fontes from the Águas Vivas. Visitors from DOP, Portuguese Navy and the Government of the Azores look on.
João deploying a bathymetric LAUV for habitat mapping for Jorge Fontes from the Águas Vivas. Visitors from DOP, Portuguese Navy and the Government of the Azores look on.
High resolution bathymetry of the south side of Pico with the LAUV. The transect line is 9 km in length.
DOP director Hélder Marques da Silva being interviewed on the Águas Vivas.
DOP directorDOP director Hélder Marques da Silva being interviewed on the Águas Vivas.
Ditto Fausto Costa Gomes de Brito e Abreu, Secretary for the Sea, Science and Technology, Government of Azores.
Ditto Fausto Costa Gomes de Brito e Abreu, Secretary for the Sea, Science and Technology, Government of Azores. Note the precarious picture taking by the Azorian official.
Ditto Admiral Coelho Cândido, Comandante da zona marítima dos Açores, of the Portuguese Navy.
Dinner at a local taverna in Porto Pim, well into the night, thanks to the wait staff...

Friday July 10th and pretty much the entire team moved to Pico with an early morning ferry ride. NTNU, Mike's team and FEUP UAVs went over while Paulo Dias and João took the faster way, a RHIB to continue with bathymetric mapping of the south coast of Pico. They managed to do a long 18km transect along the south coast as planned with excellent results.

Mike's testing of a UAV sending messages to an AUV via JAUS used FEUP UAVs and was a short test that went very well. Equally NTNU's first flight with the hyper-spec over water was accomplished. Data is being processed to see precisely what we saw. A flight with the gimbaled IR camera was less fortunate. A propellor inadvertantly hit the catapult and the low power takeoff resulted in an immediate hard lanading. The NTNU team on coming back from a long day, set about fixing the frame of the vehicle. 

Manuel Ribeiro and number of FEUP folks also took time off to calibrate a quadcopter Manuel had brought along, ostensibly to take video footage of operations for Phase-II. The calibration took place outside the DOP housing area where there was sufficient open space and no one around.

One dissapointment, was the two vehicle cotemporal surveys of FEUP AUVs running T-REX. Xplore 1 and 2 were taken by Zé Pinto and Frédéric off of Feteira in a Navy RHIB. Xplore 1 when given a high level directive to survey took off and did what was expected. But Xplore 2 just happened to sit where it was on the surface and refused to move. Post-hoc analysis revealed that the special configuration of this latter vehicle implied that the only depth measurement was via the CTD sensor, the very same one that had recently been calibrated. Further this vehicle had a pressure sensor which had shown not to be reliable and consequently switched off. So with no multiple sensor stream to support the depth measurement, the vehicle's CTD was the sole source of information. And with the nose in the air, it apparently wasn't, showing the vehicle underwater when it was on the surface. T-REX consequently failed to initiate. 

Finally, earlier in the day, we had some important visitors, to the DOP integration lab and the operations in Pico. This included Fausto Abreu of the Government of Azores, the Director of DOP Hélder Marques da Silva and Admiral Coelho Cândido Commander of the Azores maritime zone of the Portuguese Navy. 

The day ended with a late meal in a local taverna to send off both Alex and Ivan who were heading back to the UK and Sweden respectively. Wrapping up at 12 midnight wasn't by design for this Friday night; it had a lot to do with our waiter and his efficiency (not).