Gaia Blu - Scientific instrumentation

Scientific instrumentation on board of Gaia Blu

 

Scientific Echosounders and attitude sensors

Echo sounders are sonar systems that transmit acoustic waves through the water column and record the time interval between the emission and return of a pulse. These acoustic systems can be used to observe echoes from the seabed — allowing reconstruction of the seafloor bathymetry — or from targets within the water column. 

Gaia Blu is equipped with several hull-mounted echo sounders for different applications. Single-beam sonars are typically used for fisheries research and physical studies of water masses, while three multibeam sonar models operating at different frequencies are used for seafloor mapping down to full ocean depth. 

• Kongsberg EM304 (50 kHz) Multibeam Sonar for Deep Water (1,000–5,000 m) 
• Kongsberg EM712 (70–100 kHz) Multibeam Sonar for Intermediate Water (200–1,000/1,200 m) 
• Kongsberg EM2040-04 (200–400 kHz) Multibeam Sonar for Shallow Water (< 250 m) 
• Simrad EA 600 Single Beam Echo Sounder (12-16, 38-9, 120-25 and 200-28 kHz) 
• SH90 – Sonar for fishing 
• Simrad EK60 Single Beam Echo Sounder (ES18, ES38B, ES70-C, ES120-7C, ES200-7C and 710-30) with EK80 software 
• Kongsberg Seapath 380 Position, Attitude, Time and Heading Sensor 
• Kongsberg Seatex MRU-5 Motion Sensor 

 

Chirp sub-bottom profiler 

Chirp sub-bottom profilers are acoustic systems that use acoustic waves to image sub-surface features buried tens of metres below the seabed. Gaia Blu is equipped with a hull-mounted Chirp profiler covering a wide frequency range, capable of operating across the full ocean depth. 

• Knudsen Chirp 3260 3.5/12 kHz or Knudsen 3260 – Chirp sonar profiler, 12 kHz + 9 transducers 3.5 kHz 

 

Acoustic Current Profilers 

ADCPs (Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers) are sensors that use sound waves to determine the velocity and direction of currents along the water column. The ADCPs installed on board Gaia Blu operate at different frequencies, enabling assessment of marine currents from shallow waters down to thousands of metres depth. 

• Workhorse, Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP; 300 kHz; 100–120 m; mounted in the ship's hull) 
• Pinnacle, Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP; 45 kHz; 700–1,000 m; mounted in the ship's hull) 
• 2 × Workhorse II Sentinel (L-ADCP; 300 kHz; 100–120 m; as deck facilities) 

 

Underwater acoustic positioning system 

Underwater positioning systems are used to determine the position of submerged objects, such as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) or autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). In marine research, they are used to track underwater vehicles or marine animals. 

• HiPAP 352(P) – Ultra-Short Baseline System (USBL), underwater positioning 

 

CTD and water sampling 

Gaia Blu is equipped with instruments including CTDs for measuring temperature, conductivity, and depth along the water column, along with auxiliary sensors. These instruments are generally mounted on a frame — the "rosette" — which is deployed from the side of the vessel and also carries water sampling bottles that are triggered at the desired depth by the on-board operator. 

• CTD-Rosette system: LARS and Ibercisa winch (40 kN), 6,000 m Vectran cable, CTD SBE911plus and SBE32 Carousel with 24 × 12 L Niskin bottles 
• Wet Laboratory equipped with: Extractor hood; Refrigerators (+4, −20, −80 °C); TCF 50 stove; Zeiss Discovery V8 Stereo Microscope + Axiocam 208 colour camera; SOMA SINUS SODIAL volumetric sinusoidal pump, mod. SCN25-SD-15, for continuous sampling of uncontaminated surface water; Milli-Q water system 

 

Continuous water characterisation 

Gaia Blu is equipped with a continuous water sampling line, which also supplies water to a sensor that collects real-time data on sea surface conductivity and temperature. 

• SBE 45 MicroTSG Thermosalinograph 

 

Sound Velocity Profilers 

A Sound Velocity Profiler (SVP) is a sensor designed to measure the speed of sound in water — a parameter directly influenced by the physical characteristics of water masses, including temperature, salinity, and pressure. Measuring the velocity profile along the water column underpins numerous underwater acoustic instruments, and Gaia Blu is equipped with SVPs for point-by-point profiling along the water column as well as continuous near-surface measurement. 

• Valeport: Sound Velocity Profiler MIDAS SVP (6,000 m), Sound Velocity Sensor MiniSVS, Altimeter VA500 

 

Seabed and sub-bottom sampling 

• Carmacoring swing and CP-20 gravity/piston core barrel (for core recovery up to 25 m), 90 kN Ibercisa winch with 6,000 m of steel cable 

 

Meteorological station 

Gaia Blu is equipped with a weather station for the collection of meteorological data including air temperature, atmospheric pressure, relative humidity, and wind speed and direction. Additionally, Gaia Blu has an automatic photometer installed on board for the study of aerosol dynamics — an innovative instrument for aerosol detection in the marine environment that collects and transmits real-time data following automatic on-board processing. 

• Ecosearch SM45 control unit 
• Apogee SP-510 Thermopile Pyranometer to measure broad-spectrum shortwave radiation 
• SL-510 – Thermopile Pyrgeometer to measure broad-spectrum longwave radiation 
• LI-COR LI-192 – Campbell Scientific PAR Sensor for the measurement of Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) in aquatic environments 
• CSAT3B – Triaxial Sonic Anemometer to measure the three orthogonal wind components and the speed of sound 
• Campbell Scientific SI-111 Precision Infrared Radiometer for the measurement of water surface temperature without physical contact 
• Campbell Scientific CR1000X Datalogger 
• FishSky 360° with Mini PC – All-Sky Camera 

 

Internet, Cloud, and Computing Systems 

4 compute nodes, each with: 

• 1 Intel Xeon Gold processor, 16C/32T 
• 128 GB RAM 
• 2 × 480 GB disks 
• 4 × 10 GbE base-T ports 
• VMware vCenter and ESXi SW licences 

Scale-up storage system with the following features: 

• 12 TB SSD Read Intensive disks 
• 100 TB SAS/SATA disks configured in RAID6 (or equivalent) 
• Multiple volume sharing protocols, including NFS 

• Two Top-of-Rack switches, each with 28 × 10Base-T ports and 2 QSFP28 ports 
• Tape Library with LTFS-type filesystem tape cartridges for a total volume of 100 TB 
• Management SW: QSTAR Archive (for a volume of 100 TB) 
• C-band Maritime VSAT Antenna System (Model v240 C) 
• Sea Tel 97 series 
• Land communication system (LTE, 5G) 
• Starlink Flat High-Performance Kit (Maritime/Energy)