On Way to Japan: IRS-CRASAR return to Minamisanriku-cho

Posted by admin on Oct 20, 2011 at 9:49 am America/Chicago

We are flying out today, bringing back the SeaBotix SARbot and adding in an Oceanserver autonomous underwater vehicle, plus the EDGE network is sending GeoSuites to explore distributing the data and we have a  GIS expert from TAMU-CC. We'll be returning to Minamisanriku-cho, one of the two cities we visited in April. The mission that our colleagues at the International Rescue Systems Institute is quite different- we are tasked to find and clear debris in the surrounding bay. We plan to use the OceanServer AUV to quickly map portions of the bay, then use the ROV to attach a float and post it on the map and distribute it through GeoSuites. However, as Rick Smith, our GIS expert says, there's more to cartography than putting red pins on a map- we are hoping to predict where other debris will be. GeoSuites is the civilian version of TIGR, the common operating picture software used by the US military-- Brian Slaughter will be managing that. Eric Steimle (AEOS) is our lead again and Jesse is on the SARbot again.  YSI/Nanotech,  the OceanServer distributor in Japan, will meet the IRS-CRASAR team there. Wish us well-- the slow pace of recovery in Minamisanriku was reported on by the New Times here.  We are honored to join our Japanese colleagues at IRS in participatory research: learning while doing.