The IEEE Canada Atlantic Section wishes to invite you to attend their 2011 Annual General Meeting taking place on Friday December 2, 2011 @ 5pm at the University Club, Dalhousie University. Details of the event and of the guest speaker can be found below.

Abstract:

When Canada ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 2003, it embarked upon a 10-year program to collect scientific information to substantiate its submission to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in order to definitively establish the outer limits of the continental shelf. By 2008, it was clear that techniques other than spot soundings through the ice would be necessary to acquire all of the desired bathymetry data by the 2013 deadline.

After consultation with Defence R&D Canada (DRDC), a proposal was submitted to the Canadian UNCLOS Program Steering Committee to use autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to collect bathymetry data in the arctic ice-covered waters. In June 2008 this proposal was approved and Project Cornerstone began. Cornerstone is an interdepartmental project between DRDC, Natural Resources Canada, and Fisheries and Oceans to purchase two commercial AUVs, modify them for the challenging arctic missions, and operate the vehicles in the arctic to collect bathymetry data during the 2010 and 2011 spring seasons.

This concept of operation required unique capabilities be developed for the AUVs that address: long endurance, redundancy and flexibility with key sensors, an accurate inertial navigation system for positioning of the bathymetry data, a novel homing system for the AUV to reliably return to the drifting remote ice camp, and a variable ballast system to enable the AUVs to park anywhere from under the ice cap to the sea bottom at 3500 m depth. This presentation describes these AUV developments and the challenging arctic logistics that were part of Project Cornerstone.

About the Speaker:

Mr. David Hopkin joined DRDC in 1981, and has spent the intervening 28 years working in the area of maritime system development for Mine Countermeasures and Underwater Force Protection. He is currently the Head of the Maritime Asset Protection Section, where he manages a broad S&T program covering Underwater and Above Water Maritime Platform Signatures and Underwater Force Protection. He is the Chairman and Canadian National Leader for the Technical Cooperation Program Maritime Group Technical Panel 13 on mine warfare, and was the Scientific Lead for an extensive international which looked at the use of unmanned systems for a coalition mine warfare scenario. He is the Project Director for an Interdepartmental initiative to employ unmanned underwater vehicles to collect bathymetry data in ice covered waters in the Arctic in support of the Canadian UNCLOS submission.

He has served as the head of the Underwater Force Protection Group, where he was responsible for research and development activities in countermeasures for underwater threats, including diver detection, classification and tracking, mine detection, classification and identification, and unmanned systems for mine countermeasures. As the Scientific Authority for the Remote Minehunting System Technology Demonstration Project, he oversaw a wide range of R&D activities, including hydrodynamic and control issues for Unmanned Surface Vehicles, software development for computer aided detection and classification of mines, high bandwidth mobile data communication systems, and accurate underwater positioning systems. This Minehunting system is currently an interim operational capability for the Canadian Navy, and was key in numerous international collaborations. Prior to this work, Mr. Hopkin was involved in the development of the Theseus unmanned underwater vehicle, which successfully completed a 440 km mission under the Arctic ice laying 220 km of fiber optic cable.