This course will provide an understanding of free vehicle and ocean lander design, applications, advantages, limitations, and seaborne operations. Using video presentations, printed materials, and hands-on demonstrations, attendees will be actively involved in the process of learning how to acquire or build their own ocean landers, and the immediate steps they can take to gain the confidence needed to pull the quick release. Freed from winch and wire, ocean landers can spend months, even years, at any depth. The surface vessel is likewise free from the ocean lander, and able to move off to pursue other cruise objectives. Multiple ocean landers can survey wide areas from a nonspecialized surface vessel. Ocean landers can carry traps, samplers, sensors, and cameras, and make surface-to-seafloor profiles. A number of commercial components are readily available to create a purpose-built ocean lander. A general-purpose ocean lander with interchangeable payload modules could support several science departments, providing a common motor pool for deep ocean access. The discussion will be reinforced with real-world examples of applications and experiences, good and bad, from the presenters’ personal experience and those of other operators. Free vehicles can be small enough to be lifted with one hand from the ocean, yet strong enough to journey to the bottom of any ocean trench. Small free vehicles with no HazMat have been flown overnight on passenger aircraft to remote destinations, assembled dockside, loaded and taken to sea. Sitting stationary on the seafloor, ocean landers are absolutely quiet, allowing recording of ambient sound fields. Nothing beats an ocean lander for persistence, silently monitoring for multiple years. Ocean engineers gain valuable experience, confidence, and competence by training in the design and deployment of free vehicles and ocean landers. This tutorial will take attendees through an interactive process of defining and designing a free vehicle based on a real cruise profile. Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) sources of components will be discussed, permitting end-users the opportunity to intelligently consider the Make-Buy decision, based on factors of time, cost, and quality.
