The objective of this project is to provide Ohmsett with the capability of remotely calculating oil and ice coverage, as well as determining thickness. Accurate, rapid, and facilitated assessment of cold water and ice testing parameters such as total surface oil versus ice area coverage and oil layer thickness in the Ohmsett facility test tank can best be accomplished using imaging technologies. For relative ice and oil coverage, this would entail using imagery obtained from above the tank, geo-referencing the imagery to obtain quantitative scale, identifying ice and oil areas in the imagery, and computing the total surface area covered by each. Aerial multispectral mapping will be used in the determination of interstitial oil thickness and associated free oil layer thickness. To do this in near-real-time the plan is to adapt remote sensing technologies developed by Ocean Imaging Corporation (OI) for at-sea oil spill mapping. These techniques were partially developed and tested at Ohmsett during OI's numerous experiments conducted there between 2005 and 2011 and can be readily adapted for the cold water and ice testing needs of BSEE at the Ohmsett facility.
The scope of the project will be accomplished in the following tasks:
Task 1. Initial Development. Task 2. Prototype Mount Design, Fabrication and Installation. Task 3. Initial Testing. Task 4. Software Development for Auto-mosaicking, Initial Area and Volume. Task 5. Modification to Camera. Task 6. Ice Imaging Tests at Ohmsett. Task 7. Final Report and Permanent Installation.
This project has been completed. The tools have been delivered to Ohmsett and staff have been trained on its capabilities. The tool is a version of Ocean Imaging's Tactical Rapid Airborne Classification System (TRACS) which has been optimized to be used at Ohmsett, and is able to accurately output an oil thickness map as well as determine oil and/or ice coverage in a given area.