Precision survey and archaeological methodology in deep water (original) (raw)
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2010
The goals of this article are twofold. First, we detail the operations and discuss the results of the 2005 Chios an-cient shipwreck survey. This survey was conducted by an international team of engineers, archaeologists, and natural scientists off the Greek island of Chios in the northeastern Aegean Sea using an autonomous under-water vehicle (AUV) built specifically for high-resolution site inspection and characterization. Second, using the survey operations as context, we identify the specific challenges of adapting AUV technology for deep water archaeology and describe how our team addressed these challenges during the Chios expedition. After identifying the state of the art in robotic tools for deep water archaeology, we discuss opportunities in which new developments and research (e.g., AUV platforms, underwater imaging, remote sensing, and navigation techniques) will improve the rapid assessment of deep water archaeological sites. It is our hope that by report-
A new method for underwater archaeological surveying using sensors and unmanned platforms
As most of the world's oceans are inaccessible to diving archaeologists, we must rely on advanced underwater technology and marine robotics to explore, map and investigate ship wrecks in these areas. New sensors and unmanned sensor platforms represent huge potentials for archaeological applications, but require a scrutinous look at how established archaeological methods and approaches must be adapted or rejected to optimize the results. Surveys done on a disintegrated wreck site with acoustic sensors like side scan sonar and synthetic aperture sonar, and optical sensors like stereo cameras, video and underwater hyperspectral imager, are compiled to serve as a case study to demonstrate the method. Challenges regarding guidance, navigation and control are discussed.
Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, 2019
Between 2015 and 2017 the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project (Black Sea MAP) discovered and recorded 65 shipwreck sites dating from the 4 th Century BC to the 19 th Century AD in the Bulgarian Exclusive Economical Zone (EEZ). Using state-of-the-art remotely operated vehicles to survey the seabed, the team captured more than 250,000 high-definition (HD) photographs; hundreds of hours of ultra high-definition (UHD) video together with acoustic bathymetric, laser, side-scan sonar and seismic data. The wrecks were located in depths from 40 to 2,200 metres-those shipwrecks in the deeper range presented extraordinary archaeological preservation due to the Black Sea's anoxic conditions. This paper will introduce the range of deep-sea optic and acoustic survey techniques to accurately record and
Marine Robots Mapping the Present and the Past: Unraveling the Secrets of the Deep
Remote Sensing
Underwater cultural heritage sites are subject to constant change, whether due to natural forces such as sediments, waves, currents or human intervention. Until a few decades ago, the documentation and research of these sites was mostly done manually by diving archaeologists. This paper presents the results of the integration of remote sensing technologies with autonomous marine vehicles in order to make the task of site documentation even faster, more accurate, more efficient and more precisely georeferenced. It includes the integration of multibeam sonar, side scan sonar and various cameras into autonomous surface and underwater vehicles, remotely operated vehicle and unmanned aerial vehicle. In total, case studies for nine underwater cultural heritage sites around the Mediterranean region are presented. Each case study contains a brief archaeological background of the site, the methodology of using autonomous marine vehicles and sensors for their documentation, and the results in...
ISPRS - International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), benefiting from significant investments in the past years, are commonly used for military security and offshore Oil&Gas applications. The ARROWS project 1 , aimed at exporting the AUV technology to the field of underwater archaeology, a low-budget research field compared to the previous ones. The paper focuses on the strategy for vehicle coordination adopted within the project, a Search and Inspection (S&I) approach borrowed from the defense field (e.g., mine countermeasure-MCM) that proved to be an efficient solution also for the main phases of an underwater archaeological mission. The other main novelty aspect is represented by MARTA (MArine Robotic Tool for Archaeology) AUV: it is a modular vehicle easily and quickly reconfigurable developed in the framework of ARROWS according to the project Archaeological Advisory Group (AAG) guidelines. Results from the final demonstration of the project, held in Estonia during Summer 2015, are proposed in the paper as an experimental proof of the validity of the proposed S&I strategy, and MARTA functioning and its adaptability to the mission requirements. Even in its first prototype version, MARTA successfully played the Inspection role within the AUV team, collaborating with a commercial Search AUV. Acoustic and optical data collected during the mission and processed to increase their intelligibility for the human operator are proposed and discussed.
2.4. An ASV (Autonomous Surface Vehicle) for Archaeology- The Pla.pdf
This chapter seeks to inform the archaeological community about a robotic autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) currently being developed for shallow-water applications in marine sciences and archaeology (Miškovic´ et al. 2011, Miškovic´ et al. 2013; Vasilijevic´ et al. 2015). The ASV Pladypos (a PLAtform for DYnamic POSitioning) was developed at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, in the Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies (LABUST). Its main characteristic, from which it obtained its name, is dynamic positioning at sea. The Pladypos uses GPS to keep a steady position at a requested location or along transects while actively compensating for external disturbances such as wind, waves, and currents. The Pladypos can deploy with a variety of cameras and sensors to survey submerged ancient harbors and coastal settlements, or any underwater landscape where current digital recording strategies do not scale well beyond the size of individual shipwreck sites. The Pladypos was originally developed to answer research needs identified by underwater archaeologists and other marine scientists, and collaboration between the engineers and archaeologists on real field missions was planned from the outset as a means to increase interdisciplinary understanding and identify areas for improvement. Here we present some preliminary results and describe the experience of an interdisciplinary team using the Pladypos to create a georeferenced bathymetric map and integrated photomosaic of the submerged ruins at Caesarea Maritima in Israel
An ASV for coastal underwater archaeology: The Pladypos survey of Caesarea Maritima, Israel
OCEANS 2015 - Genova, 2015
Coastal underwater archaeological sites are by nature dynamic, and often subject to disturbance from the action of waves, currents, sediment, and human activity. The need to document such sites comprehensively, accurately, and quickly has been the driving force behind technological advances in predisturbance site mapping since the 1960s. Certain challenges remain constant: the need for technology to be affordable and robust, with efficient post-processing as well as data acquisition times. Non-engineers must be able to interpret the results and publish them according to archaeological conventions. Large ancient shallow water port sites, submerged settlements, and landscape surveys present additional difficulties because of the volume of data generated. In this paper we present initial results of the first season of an expedition to map the submerged Herodian structures at Caesarea Maritima, Israel, using a robotic vehicle, the Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV) Pladypos, which was developed to address these challenges. This vehicle carries high-resolution imaging and remote-sensing tools to produce photomosaics and microbathymetry maps of the seafloor, as well as performing precise georeferencing. The Pladypos acquired a vast amount of georeferenced bathymetric and photographic data over several days in May 2014 and the results were later integrated into a GIS.