Submersible imaging system sheds light on watery depths

An underwater system that can analyse many types of microscopic organisms and particles in oceans, lakes, reservoirs and streams, and then rapidly transmit that data to scientists, is about to hit the market. Designed by Fluid Imaging Technologies (FIT), a company based in Yarmouth, Maine, the system works at depths up to 200m.

The Submersible FlowCAM can be attached to a stationary underwater mount, buoys or moorings, carried in the payload bays of underwater robots, or towed, providing more accurate data faster and more cheaply than taking water samples and carrying them back to a laboratory for analysis.

The FIT team worked with scientists from Ohio-based Battelle, who were responsible for developing the pressure-vessel housing that protects the instrument and the equipment that collects the water for analysis. FIT designed the system that fits inside this, which classifies images of the waterborne organisms.

According to Harry Nelson, director of aquatic sales and marketing at FIT, the system combines the capabilities of a flow cytometer with a digital imaging system. Like a flow cytometer, the system can measure the optical properties of particles in water, but it is also able to capture images of those particles. Using the FlowCAM’s image-recognition software Visual Spreadsheet, the user can determine, for example, what organisms are found in the water.