北極海氷下観測ドローンの開発

抄録

There are lots of knowledge gaps concerning the sea ice of the Arctic Ocean, such as sea ice thickness, sea ice dynamics and sea ice – ocean interactions. Therefore JAMSTEC is now developing a special platform that will be able to move under ice and measure various kinds of data continuously and automatically. It is an intelligence underwater drone for the Arctic Ocean named as COMAI-Drone (COMAI-Drone：Challenge of Observation and Measurement under Arctic Ice - Drone). Now its proto-type have been already designed and initiated to build. Additionally, some aid systems, which can detect its position, can detect the relative direction to a support ship and can communicate between the drone and the support ship, are now developing. At the same time, watertank-tests and field-tests have been conducted gradually. In near future, COMAI-Drone will collect invaluable data under the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. In this paper, its outline including its mechanism, functions and operation system are described.