Plankton Imaging
In-Situ Ichthyoplankton Imaging System Technology
Remotely Operated Towed Vehicles
ISIIS-2 ROTV
"The Fish behaved superbly as we managed hours of undulations: we had no more than 25m of water depth and were continuously profiling up and down!"
Our ISIIS-2 ROTV is our most advanced towed vehicle. The vehicle was designed to minimize environmental disturbance, and most importantly, features pre-programmed profiling capabilities such as being able to perform undulations, fly at a user-defined depth or follow the contour of the sea-floor at a set altitude.
The ISIIS-2 ROTV provides a fine scale resolution of the distribution of organisms at different depths, down to 200m. The vehicle's design minimizes vibrations affecting image resolution and allows a near-completely undisturbed view of planktonic organisms, due to both the frame's advanced hydrodynamic features, and towing the platform from the side of a ship rather than from the stern, thereby moving the tether out of the path of the ISIIS imaging equipment.
Standard sensors include a CTD, a fluorometer, a dissolved oxygen sensor, and a downwelling sensor over PAR. Vehicle's pitch and roll angles as well as water flow speeds and altitude data are provided thanks to an acoustic doppler current profiler.
All data (vehicle behavior, environmental data and ISIIS images) are relayed in real-time onboard the support vessel.
ISIIS-1 Sled
The ISIIS-1 sled is a passive platform: depth of operation is controlled by the length of tether deployed. This sled provides a stable and robust platform and it is equipped with the same ISIIS imaging system than the ISIIS-2 ROTV.
Standard sensors also include a CTD, a fluorometer, a dissolved oxygen sensor, and a downwelling sensor over PAR. Vehicle's pitch and roll angles as well as water flow speeds and altitude data are provided thanks to an acoustic doppler current profiler.
All data (vehicle behavior, environmental data and ISIIS images) are relayed in real-time onboard the support vessel.
On-board Graphical User Interface
All data are sent on-board the support ship via one single-mode fiber-optic conductor. Both ISIIS-1 and ISIIS-2 have their own user graphical interface for data acquisition, image recording, display and controls. A scalable external disc array drive is used to save our plankton images (one 16TB unit scalable to a 4-unit system for 64TB of storage space).
Deck Equipment
ISIIS sleds require a support ship equipped with an A-Frame with a dedicated sheave. Bellamare works with third-party manufacturers to provide a required electrical winch with its single-mode fiber-optic tether and slip-ring.
Bellamare will most often provide the winch junction box and make the necessary fiber-optic conductor terminations.