As I have said in a previous post, I am in charge of acquiring, analyzing and displaying salinity and temperature data for the marine biologists. I will be using scattered data interpolation to analyze and display our salinity and temperature readings.
So what is scattered data interpolation? It has to do with the idea that we can only take so many measurements. There are going to be places in the cisterns and caves that we didn't collect data, but we still want to have an idea of what the readings would be. So how do we do that? We use math to estimate the data based on the measurements that we collected around them. With this system we can have good estimates for any location in the sites we visit without having to spend too much time taking measurements.
There are really two parts to my project: the acquisition of the data, and the analysis/modeling of the data. What work have I done on them?
For the acquisition of the data, I have been working on getting the salinity and temperature sensors. The salinity sensor me and Tyler are going to build in the next week. We bought two sets of parts for the possibility that one might break. This is mainly due to the fact that previous ICEX members have instilled in me the saying "Always have backups." As for the temperature sensor, we are lucky enough to be getting two for free. Dr. Clark was contacted by an employee of VideoRay (the company who makes our robots) who had an interest in our project. He offered to give us two free MS5541-30C Miniature 30 bar Modules (pressure sensors that also transmit temperature readings) along with two free Protocol Adapter Multiplexers (or PAMs). PAMs are basically small computers that are made to take in data from sensors and send that data up the tether to our computers. Our goal is to be able to press a button on the surface and use PAM to take both salinity and temperature readings, and send it up the tether in one packet.
So what is scattered data interpolation? It has to do with the idea that we can only take so many measurements. There are going to be places in the cisterns and caves that we didn't collect data, but we still want to have an idea of what the readings would be. So how do we do that? We use math to estimate the data based on the measurements that we collected around them. With this system we can have good estimates for any location in the sites we visit without having to spend too much time taking measurements.
There are really two parts to my project: the acquisition of the data, and the analysis/modeling of the data. What work have I done on them?
For the acquisition of the data, I have been working on getting the salinity and temperature sensors. The salinity sensor me and Tyler are going to build in the next week. We bought two sets of parts for the possibility that one might break. This is mainly due to the fact that previous ICEX members have instilled in me the saying "Always have backups." As for the temperature sensor, we are lucky enough to be getting two for free. Dr. Clark was contacted by an employee of VideoRay (the company who makes our robots) who had an interest in our project. He offered to give us two free MS5541-30C Miniature 30 bar Modules (pressure sensors that also transmit temperature readings) along with two free Protocol Adapter Multiplexers (or PAMs). PAMs are basically small computers that are made to take in data from sensors and send that data up the tether to our computers. Our goal is to be able to press a button on the surface and use PAM to take both salinity and temperature readings, and send it up the tether in one packet.
For the the analysis/modeling part of the project I have been working on visualization software. So far I have gotten one of our old cistern mesh files from Jeff, loaded it into the program, displayed the cistern
and added camera controls allowing you to move around the cistern.
To the left you can see a current picture of my program. It isn't as visually appealing as I would like it to be because I have not yet learned enough about lighting to add it into the program but within another week I should be able to add this feature. Also, I have recently received the code for a previous masters students data visualization project. I am currently
analyzing it in hopes to use parts to do the calculations for the scattered data interpolation.
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