ASV joins search for aircraft flown by Amelia Earhart
An autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) is being used by a team of researchers hoping to find the aircraft flown by Amelia Earhart during her round-the-world flight in 1937.
Dubbed BEN (Bathymetric Explorer and Navigator) the ASV has been developed at the University of New Hampshire’s (UNH) Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping to explore the seafloor in waters too deep for divers.
The project is led by Dr Robert Ballard, the deep-sea explorer who found RMS Titanic’s final resting place and the founder of the Ocean Exploration Trust, which operates Exploration Vessel (EV) Nautilus. BEN will give Nautilus’ crew the ability to map the seafloor in the shallow areas adjacent to the island where Earhart sent her last radio transmission.
Deep Impact: engineering an expedition to the oceans’ deepest points
Plymouth Sound to become proving ground for autonomous marine vessels
This area is said to be too deep for divers and too shallow for safe navigation of the Nautilus to use its deep-water sonar systems. Maps of the ocean floor produced by BEN will be used by the Nautilus crew to target dives with remotely operated vehicles (ROV) in the search for remnants of the plane.
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