The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will undertake development of a second generation Video Plankton Recorder (VPR) system with improved performance and capabilities. The original prototype VPR has been developed over the past eight years to quantify the distribution patterns of plankton and hydrography over broad range of scales (millimeters to 100s of kilometers). A new image processing/data display system that can automatically identify planktonic taxa and provide visualizations of their distributions at sea in real time has also been developed. While the VPR has potential for enabling biological oceanographers to obtain real-time high-resolution distribution data on plankton and environmental variables, only one prototype system exists. This effort will make improvements in key areas, reduce overall size and weight, and make it more accessible to the general oceanographic community. Tasks to be accomplished include: 1) upgrading the tow-body from a depressor fin to an undulating body that is dynamically controllable horizontally and vertically. This new design will enhance towing capabilities at variable depths while reducing cable diameter, winch size, and cost, and thus allow deployment from small coastal vessels. 2) upgrading from two video cameras to a single high-resolution digital camera having an order of magnitude greater pixel density, and 3) upgrading the image processing system to improve accuracy and ease of use and reduce the computers needed for image processing from a PC and unix workstation to a single PC.
By making the new VPR system versatile,, easy to use, and accessible to the general oceanographic community, the instrument will allow biological oceanographers to rapidly sample the dynamic pelagic environment, obtaining distribution data on planktonic taxa and environmental variables over a broad range of scales.
