The Hadal Water Column Profiler is designed to free-fall to the seabed and return autonomously. Key design requirements include being able to operate at the deepest part of the ocean (~11km), and getting as close to the seabed as possible without hitting the bottom. The scientific instruments onboard measure parameters for physical oceanography, chemical oceanography, and marine biology research. It is capable of collecting water samples for trace metal analysis at programmed depths. The profiler is untethered and fully autonomous.

The scientific instruments and vehicle hardware come from various university groups and commercial vendors in the USA, Canada, and Australia. Some of the instruments are experimental/one-offs while others are commercial-off-the-shelf. I design and write the software to integrate all these instruments and profiler platform, electrical and software included. I also build the user interface for scientists to configure the profiler for every cast. It's still under development, but has been deployed several times on test dives.

Link to more photos