ENDURUNS: An Integrated and Flexible Approach for Seabed Survey Through Autonomous Mobile Vehicles
, Nikolla Gjeci 3,†, Shashank Govindaraj 4,†, Alexandru But 4,†, Benjamin Sportich 4,†, Ennio Ottaviani 3,†, Fausto Pedro GarcÃa Márquez 5,†, Pedro Jose Bernalte Sanchez 5,†, Jonas Pedersen 6,†, Casper Vetke Clausen 6,†, Fantina Madricardo 7,†, Fedeirca Foglini 8,†, Federico Bonofiglio 1,†, Laura Barbieri 1,†, Massimiliano Antonini 9,†, Yeidy Sorani Montenegro Camacho 9,†, Peter Weiss 10,†, Kathrin Nowak 10,†, Makthoum Peer 10,†, Thibaud Gobert 10,†, Theodore Steriotis 15,†, Georgia Charalambopoulou 15,†, add
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Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript presents the idea of conducting seabed survey through autonomous marine vehicles. The authors discussed in detail about the ENDURUNS project, components and plan.
The reviewer's major concern is that this paper doesn't present any scientific results, field measurements, nor system building or evaluation. The reviewer feel the paper is more focus on what will be done instead of what has been done in the ENDURUNS project.
The reviewer will suggest the authors to resubmit the paper showing scientific result or engineering result, which will increase the impact at large.
Also there are minor concerns on the clarity of the writing.
- Line 49, the author state that the fixed observatories have small spatial coverage. However, some mooring or buoy array expands across the shelf, but they are sparsely placed, therefore, high spatial coverage but low resolution.
- Line 52, larger spatial resolution and coverage should be "higher" spatial resolution and coverage.
- Line 56, "their typical sinusoidal trajectories". We often refer glider path to "vertical sawtooth" pattern.
- Line 56, gliders are equipped with downward looking altimeter to detect the seafloor for collision avoidance purpose.
- The reviewer feel Table A.1 and A.2 can be included in the normal section instead of placed at the end.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
the authors are very grateful to your constructive comments. All comments have been addressed which resulted in a better and improved paper. Please find below the responses to your comments.
The modifications to the original paper are marked in the manuscript in “red”.
Thank you very much in advance.
Question:
This manuscript presents the idea of conducting seabed survey through autonomous marine vehicles. The authors discussed in detail about the ENDURUNS project, components and plan. The reviewer's major concern is that this paper doesn't present any scientific results, field measurements, nor system building or evaluation. The reviewer feel the paper is more focus on what will be done instead of what has been done in the ENDURUNS project. The reviewer will suggest the authors to resubmit the paper showing scientific result or engineering result, which will increase the impact at large.
Reply:
We are very grateful to the reviewer for his remarks because it provides us the opportunity to better explain the results obtained in the ENDURUNS project. The main scientific contribution of this manuscript is to show a novel approach for the ocean inspection and monitoring. Actually the manuscript presents the overall ENDURUNS concept and, in particular, it describes the requirement and the design results of the ENDURUNS surveying system after 18 months of project research activities and 16 reports delivered to the European Research Council.
In order to improve the content presentation, the following changes have been made:
- The paragraph of the introduction mentioning the ENDURUNS project has been updated in order to provide more details on the project: line 78 to line 92
- Two new subsections, 3.1 and 3.2, have been added to the manuscript providing more details about the technical approaches of the underwater and the surface vehicles.
Question:
Line 49, the author state that the fixed observatories have small spatial coverage. However, some mooring or buoy array expands across the shelf, but they are sparsely placed, therefore, high spatial coverage but low resolution.
Reply:
We agree with this comment. We amended the text form lines 49 to 55 according with the reviewer remarks and also added two new relevant bibliographic references:
“Fixed platforms, like for example cabled fixed observatories, oceanographic moorings and landers can be configured as a network of spatially distributed nodes covering an extended area and capable of acquiring data for long time periods (e.g. 10 years) at very high frequency (e.g. 1Hz) [18,19]. Nevertheless, the nodes geometry is difficult to change and the infrastructure maintenance results quite expensive.”
Question:
Line 52, larger spatial resolution and coverage should be "higher" spatial resolution and coverage.
Reply:
Thank you for this comment. Larger has been changed with higher: line 56.
Question:
Line 56, "their typical sinusoidal trajectories". We often refer glider path to "vertical sawtooth" pattern.
Reply:
Thank you for your suggestion. Sinusoidal trajectories has been changed with vertical sawtooth trajectories. Please, check the line 60
Question:
Line 56, gliders are equipped with downward looking altimeter to detect the seafloor for collision avoidance purpose.
Reply:
The sentence form line 60 to line 63 has been amended accordingly:
“Indeed, they are equipped with downward looking altimeter for seafloor collision avoidance purposes, but do not employ monitoring acoustic devices that need to be operated along the isobaths, keeping a constant distance from the seafloor as much as possible.”
Question:
The reviewer feel Table A.1 and A.2 can be included in the normal section instead of placed at the end.
Reply:
The two tables have been moved in the main text. Now they are the Table 1 and Table 2 respectively. Thank you for this good correction.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The ENDURUNS project seems plausible. It provides a major opportunity to develop new applications in seafloor333 exploration and surveying. This project indeed supports many new technologies. My main concern is that if this is applicable to the sea environment. I think the challenge is in the implementation phase. The over all idea is good.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
please, find below a detailed reply to the comments raised in your review report.
Question:
The ENDURUNS project seems plausible. It provides a major opportunity to develop new applications in seafloor exploration and surveying. This project indeed supports many new technologies. My main concern is that if this is applicable to the sea environment. I think the challenge is in the implementation phase. The over all idea is good.
Reply:
We thanks the reviewer for his remark because it provides the opportunity to better explain the ENDURUNS project. Actually, the manuscript presents the overall ENDURUNS concept and in particular it describes the requirement and the design results of the main components of the ENDURUNS surveying system after 18 months of project research activities.
In particular the paragraph of the introduction mentioning the ENDURUNS project has been updated in order to provide more details on the project. Please, check the sentences form line 78 to line 92
Two new subsections, 3.1 and 3.2, was added to the manuscript providing more engineering details about the design choices of the underwater and the surface vehicles. We hope this new information strengthens the effectiveness of the system design.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
