The Acoustic Optical Sampler (AOS) is an ongoing project in collaboration with the Advanced Survey Technologies Program (AST) at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, San Diego.
The AOS is a bi-directional, acoustic-optical sampler for mapping the dispersions of fishes and estimating their abundances, by species, over large areas, in a non-lethal manner.
The AOS’s miniature, integrated sensors provide an efficient, ship-independent, complementary approach to ecosystem-based sampling. The AOS augments ship-based surveys in marine protected areas (MPAs), enable non-lethal surveys of endangered or protected species; and allow observations of fish and zooplankton in the boundary areas that are traditionally inaccessible to sampling.
AOS features include:
- Integrated 200kHz micro-echosounder
- An adaptive sampling camera module with LED strobe
- Integrated precision temperature sensor
- A power-data-attitude sensor module (PDAS) for long term deployments
- Up to 32GB of on-board storage
- Configurable telemetry for interfacing to inductive modems and other equipment
Live data from moored AOS units can be viewed here on the Scripps Institute of Oceanography’s California Current Ecosystem mooring website.
