ReefWorks

At ReefWorks you can safely test marine technologies, autonomous and uncrewed vessels and sensors in a real-world tropical environment. ReefWorks is an Australian Institute of Marine Science initiative supported by the Queensland Government. #autonomous #RASAI #marinescience

Every summer, Australian Institute of Marine Science staff volunteer their time to help protect turtle nests from feral animals 🐖 🦊 and extreme heat on the beach at our Cape Cleveland headquarters in north Queensland. Known as ‘Operation Gungu’ (the Bindal Traditional Owner name for turtle), volunteers walk the beach to locate potential nests, place nest protectors to exclude foxes and pigs and shade the nests to prevent mortality from the heat. Later, once hatchlings have emerged, they assess hatching success from the nests. This summer, #ReefWorks provided two drones to demonstrate the capability of monitoring turtle activity on the beach during nesting season. 🎥 Imagery from the drones identified clear turtle tracks and sand disturbance as evidence of nesting attempts. Drone imagery can even detect hatchling emergence, with tiny tracks visible from the nest to the ocean. ✅ The goal is to reduce the volunteer hours needed to monitor the beach. ReefWorks is supported by the Queensland Government. Video: Joe Gioffre

Happy International Women and Girls in Science Day! Mechanical engineering may not seem like a career choice that would lead to working in science, but for Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) mechanical engineer Devereux Harvey that’s exactly what happened. She found a way to combine her maths and physics skills with her passion for the ocean. What De’vereux loves most about science, and marine science in particular, is that there’s so much to learn. Key to understanding reef processes is data collected from monitoring activities that can be used to determine trends and status of coral reefs. De’vereux is on the design team for #ReefScan, an automated marine monitoring system designed by AIMS, that translates field data into comprehensive information about the state and health of critical marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs.

💡 At Australian Institute of Marine Science we're exploring the latest technology to better understand tropical marine environments, which are under increasing pressure from the impacts of climate change and other challenges. We’re trialling next-generation #sensors, #AI, #robotics, #autonomous systems and cloud computing to provide more comprehensive knowledge, faster, to inform sustainable management. 🛟 We also seek to reduce human risk and release our world-leading marine scientists from routine tasks, allowing more time for highly skilled work. 🤫 Stay tuned for some exciting news soon on our latest autonomous vessel! 📸 Our CoralAUV being trialled at Lizard Island. Photo: Scott Bainbridge

Why is it so challenging to operate marine technology in a tropical environment?

New year, new you? If you’re looking for a cutting-edge new job in an inspiring organisation, we’re hiring! Put yourself in this picture. You could be working on our #ReefWorks tropical marine technology test range as an Australian Institute of Marine Science sensor and instrumentation engineer or technician. We’re also looking for an engineering intern. Hurry, applications close soon! Please share this link with anyone you think might be interested: https://lnkd.in/gsAc-_di? 💡 💡 💡

No usually one to blow her own horn, we spied our #ReefWorks project director Melanie Olsen doing just that during her annual leave, spreading the festive cheer. When she's not helping drive the development of autonomous marine technology, Mel plays the tuba in the Townsville Brass band. A woman of many talents, she has other strings to her bow, but we'll leave that for another sneaky post. A very tropical Merry Christmas from ReefWorks! 🎺 🎻 🎄 📸 Emily Sehu

They may look like toys, but small #autonomous surface vessels (#ASVs) such as our #Surfbees help us do the dirty, dull, or dangerous jobs we are unable or unprepared to do with a crewed vessel. They’re registered vessels under the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) with their own certificate of operation. Recently we tasked a Surfbee ASV with an autonomous bathymetry survey of our inshore test range. The ASV accurately navigated the range, charting the seafloor in shallow and difficult to reach areas such as under our wharf using real time kinetic positioning (#RTK) which can provide centimetre accuracy. We used our NAVRADAR trolley as our tracking station. It’s a one-of-a-kind, the first to be certified by AMSA as a mobile land base station. While the resulting map is not survey-quality, it helps us understand changes in the test range bathymetry between formal surveys to determine the tide needed for a vessel to safely enter the harbour. It can be seen in the first comment below. Each coloured dot represents a ping from the sounder with blue the deepest areas and red the shallowest. Users can click on each dot to get the depth, position, tide, date, and time to inform range use decisions. We’ve also just started using #Sidescan viewer software to reveal the seafloor composition. Video by ReefWorks Test Range Coordinator Joe Gioffre filmed during a similar survey last year.

💡 Test and evaluation is all about identifying potential system failures, so it’s important confounding factors within our control are minimised. 🌊 This week we took our Surfbee 2 USV out for a spin on our inshore test range after a hiatus of a few months, to ensure it was still operating at optimum levels and to refresh our team’s piloting skills. 👩✈️ 🦺 It was also an important opportunity to reiterate our safety procedures. ☀️ The tropics is hard on marine technology, and we noticed the glue had melted off the registration stickers, which needed to be reattached. Two thruster mounts had been a little deformed from the inflatable hull being stored in a carry bag over time. 🤓 We set it on a mission to gather bathymetric data which refreshed our skills using the software. Pictured is #ReefWorks test range coordinator Joe Gioffre making some final adjustments with acting ReefWorks project manager Emily Sehu. 📸 Picture: James Smith

For a deeper dive into how #ReefWorks integrated real-time current and water quality information into our inshore test range, here’s a recent article in The Journal of Ocean Technology: https://lnkd.in/gyss3c6s Authors Michelle Barnett of Sonardyne International Ltd and Australian Institute of Marine Science’s Patrick Bunday and Vic Grosjean, MEng detail the challenges, trials and outcomes of identifying technologies to help our users to understand the changeable test range conditions. The environmental challenges include warm water, turbidity, currents, shallow water, and sea states that change rapidly with the wind and tide. Below is a sensor being retrieved from the test range for data downloading. Extreme biofouling is one of the challenges of maintaining sensors in a tropical marine environment. ReefWorks is supported by the Queensland Government Advance Queensland More: https://lnkd.in/gdvjDCKf