Can Low-Cost Robots Help Us Understand Ice-Ocean Interactions Leading to Global Sea Level Rise? | Robotics for Climate Change Workshop @ ICRA 2022

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About the Video:
Melting of tidewater glaciers and ice shelves are closely linked to sea level rise. Direct measurements of submarine melt rates of glacier ice are difficult to make, as the waters in front of the glacier terminus are hazardous, especially in summer when the ice is melting rapidly and subaerial and submarine calving events occur often. Over the past few years, a method to estimate submarine melt rates by remotely measuring the sound that the melting glaciers produce has been developed. While the results are promising, melt rate, acoustic and oceanographic measurements are required near the glacial terminus to calibrate acoustic models. Given the hazardous environment that such measurements need to be made in, low-cost robots have been deployed to help. This talk outlines the key challenges that the robots have to face (e.g. low-cost accurate localization, real-time data transfer, control system delays, vertical profiling, poor visibility, hazard of falling and surfacing ice blocks, operating in an ice melange and convectively-driven plumes, etc), and some current ideas on how to tackle them. This talk also seeks to excite others in the robotics community to collaborate on developing technologies that may be helpful in making critically required measurements in hazardous glacial bays, and contribute to the understanding of ice-ocean interactions and long-term estimation of global sea level rise.

About the Speaker:
Mandar Chitre is the Head of the Acoustic Research Laboratory (ARL) at the Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI) in Singapore. He is also an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) of the National University of Singapore (NUS). He was awarded the Distinguished Technical Achievement Award by the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society in 2020 for his work on underwater communications & networking.

Recorded at the Robotics for Climate Change Workshop during the 2022 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).

Produced in partnership with the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (https://www.ieee-ras.org/).

Recording funded in part by a grant from the United Engineering Foundation (https://www.uefoundation.org/).

 

About the Video:
Melting of tidewater glaciers and ice shelves are closely linked to sea level rise. Direct measurements of submarine melt rates of glacier ice are difficult to make, as the waters in front of the glacier terminus are...

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