Expedition uses small underwater drone to discover 100-year-old shipwreck

A small underwater drone called Hydrus found the wreckage A 100-year-old lump of coal lies deep in the ocean off the coast of Western Australia. Based on the data captured by the drone, scientists were able to use photogrammetry to virtually “reconstruct” the 210-foot-long ship into her 3D model (above).Explore an interactive 3D rendering of the wreckage here.

The use of robotic submersibles to locate and explore historic shipwrecks is well established. For example, researchers used remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to examine spacecraft debris. HMS terrorismCaptain John S. Franklinis doomed arctic exploration In 2007, two brothers, both Norfolk-based printers, discovered the shipwreck. gloucesterIn 1682 she ran aground on a sandbank off the coast of Norfolk and sank within an hour. Among her passengers were the Duke of York and the future James Stuart. king james ii The British escaped in a small boat just before the ship sank.

In 2022, Falklands Marine Heritage Trust and national geographic announced British explorer’s discoveries sir ernest shackletonship of endurance. In 1915, Shackleton and his crew were stranded on the Antarctic ice for several months after their ship was crushed by an ice floe and sank into the freezing depths of the Weddell Sea. The wreckage was discovered almost 107 years later, about 4 miles (6.4 km) south of the ship’s last recorded location, at a depth of 3,008 meters (3,008 meters). The shipwreck was in pristine condition, in part because there were no wood-eating microorganisms in the area. In fact, the word “ENDURANCE” was clearly visible in the stern shot.

And just last year, an ROV was used to verify the discovery of a schooner wreck. IrontonIt collided with a Great Lakes cargo ship called . Ohio It sank in 1894 at Lake Huron’s infamous Shipwreck Alley. The shipwreck was so well preserved in the frigid waters of the Great Lakes that three of its masts were still up and its rigging still attached. This discovery may help resolve unanswered questions about her ship’s final hours.

According to Advanced Navigation, there are approximately 3 million undiscovered shipwrecks around the world, with 1,819 recorded shipwrecks off the coast of Western Australia alone. For that, Rottnest Ship Cemetery just southwest of rottnest island, the ocean floor is approximately 50 to 200 meters (164 to 656 feet) below sea level. This island is wrecked ship It has been located near its coast since the 17th century. Rather, Rottnest Cemetery is a dumping ground for scuttled ships, at least 47 of which are considered to be of historical significance.

However, this type of deep-sea exploration is time-consuming and expensive, especially at depths greater than 50 meters (164 feet). Hydrus was designed to significantly reduce the cost of this type of ocean exploration. Drones can be deployed by one person due to their compact size, so there is no need for large vessels or complex launch systems. The Hydrus can also capture georeferenced 4K video and still images simultaneously. Once this latest expedition realized they had discovered a shipwreck, they were able to deploy two drones and conduct a complete investigation in just five hours.

Western Australian Museum curator Ross Anderson said the wreck was a coal-iron hull once used for steamship maintenance in Fremantle Harbour, and was probably built between the 1860s and 1890s and was built in the 1920s. They were able to identify it as having sunk in a cemetery at some point in the 1990s. The geolocation data provided to Curtin University HIVE scientists has enabled them to use photogrammetry to transform the data into 3D digital models. “It cannot be overstated how useful this structure in the data is in constraining feature matching and reducing processing time, especially in large datasets,” said Andrew Woods, a professor at the university. No,” he said. stated in a statement.

Using Hydras technology, the expedition team’s next target is the wreck of a luxury liner SS KoombanaThe ship disappeared somewhere off the coast of Port Hedland en route to Broome during the Tropical Depression of 1912, killing an estimated 150 people on board. The only debris recovered at the time was part of the starboard bow plating, a stateroom door, promenade deck panels, and several air tanks. In the 1980s, several “magnetic anomalies” were reported on the ocean floor off Bedout Island, which is part of the shipping route. Koombana It would have taken. However, despite several deep-sea expeditions in the early 2010s, no actual shipwreck has been discovered to date.

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