• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.102-110
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• 2020

This study covers exploration of seabed around Heuksando Island using hover drones. To do so, we inspected the terrain of the island and set autonomous flight waypoints on each area of the island's shores. Next, we designated seabed scan radius for drones. Then the drones fitted with laser sensor hover autonomously on their assigned area and acquire seabed data. Finally, we match the seabed data on all areas according to GPS. Our final goal is to make immersive VR maritime cultural map based on 『Jasan Urbo』.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.97-108
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• 2005

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) formally came into existence upon the entry into force of the UNCLOS on 16 November 1994. By adopting the Implementing Agreement in 1994, UNCLOS has the universality as a Magna Carta of International Ocean Regime, and the Deep Seabed Mining Regime could be operated as a unique one for the benefit of mankind. During last 10 years, ISA established the institutional framework successfully and made substantial and tangible progress in formulating the rules, regulations and procedures for the prospecting and exploration for polymetally nodules. Furthermore, RPI's obligations had been carried out completely, and the 7 RPI made contract with ISA to become a contractor who has an at least 15 you exclusive right for exploration in their allocated site. However, due to the uncertainty of commercial mining, the number of representatives from developing countries has been getting looser and looser and ISA has a problem of quorum of the Assembly. Land-based producers took a very strong opposite position to the contractors to make their loss in the minimum level. For the next decade, it might be prospected that ISA will focus on monitoring the contractor's activities, making rules, regulations and procedures for exploration on cobalt rich crust, sulphide and methane hydrate and implementing environment studies.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.569-580
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• 2013

Co-rich ferromanganese crusts (Fe-Mn crusts) distributed on the seamounts in the western Pacific are potential economic resources for cobalt, nickel, platinum, and other rare metals in the future. Regulations for prospecting and exploration of Fe-Mn crusts in the Area, which enables the process to obtain an exclusive exploration right for blocks of the fixed size, were enacted recently by the International Seabed Authority, which led to public attention on its potential for commercial development. Evaluation and selection of a mining site can be established based on abundance and grade of Fe-Mn crusts in the site as well as topography that should be smooth enough for mining efficiency. Therefore, acquisition of shipboard echo-sounding and acoustic backscatter data are prerequisite to select potential mine sites in addition to visual and sampling operations. Acoustic backscatter data can be used to locate crust-covered areas in a regional scale with the understanding of acoustic properties of crust through its correlation with visual and sampling data. KIOST had collected the topographic and geologic data to assess the resources potential for Fe-Mn crusts in the west Pacific region from 1994 to 2001. However, they could not obtain acoustic backscatter data that is crucial for the selection of prospective mining sites. Therefore, additional exploration surveys are required to carry out side scan sonar mapping combined with seafloor observation and sampling to decide the blocks for application of an exclusive exploration right.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.168-177
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• 2020

Seabed multiple reflections (seabed multiples) are the main cause of misinterpretations of primary reflections in both shot gathers and stack sections. Accordingly, seabed multiples need to be suppressed throughout data processing. Conventional model-driven methods, such as prediction-error deconvolution, Radon filtering, and data-driven methods, such as the surface-related multiple elimination technique, have been used to attenuate multiple reflections. However, the vast majority of processing workflows require time-consuming steps when testing and selecting the processing parameters in addition to computational power and skilled data-processing techniques. To attenuate seabed multiples in seismic reflection data, input gathers with seabed multiples and label gathers without seabed multiples were generated via numerical modeling using the Marmousi2 velocity structure. The training data consisted of normal-moveout-corrected common midpoint gathers fed into a U-Net neural network. The well-trained model was found to effectively attenuate the seabed multiples according to the image similarity between the prediction result and the target data, and demonstrated good applicability to field data.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.3E
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• pp.104-110
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• 2007

As the exploration of the seabed is extended ever further, automated recognition and classification of sonar images become increasingly important. However, most of the methods ignore the directional information and its effect on the image textures produced. To deal with this problem, we apply 2D Gabor filters to extract the features of sonar images. The filters are designed with constrained parameters to reduce the complexity and to improve the calculation efficiency. Meanwhile, at each orientation, the optimal Gabor filter parameters will be selected with the help of bandwidth parameters based on the Fisher criterion. This method can overcome some disadvantages of the traditional approaches of extracting texture features, and improve the recognition rate effectively.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.222-230
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• 2016

HEMIRE is a 6,000-meter-class remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that has been developed for observation and sampling of objects of interest on the deep seabed. We first carried out deep-seabed exploration around the slopes of the Hupo Bank and the Ulleung Basin in the East Sea in June 2015. Over two weeks, a total of 10 dives were made from a support ship, the R/V Onnuri, at eight stations with water depth ranging between 194 and 2,080 m. The dive times ranged from 1 to 6 hours, depending on the operating conditions. We obtained the following results: 1) video images of the deep seafloor; 2) red snow crab density data (a major fishery resource) and inventories of deep-sea fauna, including an unrecorded organism; 3) specific topographies such as canyons slopes; 4) an undisturbed sediment core obtained using a push corer; and 5) observations of the seabed surface covered with discarded anthropogenic waste material.

• Transactions of the KSME C: Technology and Education
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.33-38
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• 2013

Offshore drilling refers to a mechanical process where a wellbore is drilled through a seabed. It is typically carried out in order to explore for and subsequently extract petroleum which lies in rock formations beneath the seabed. There are many different type of facilities from which offshore drilling operations take place. These include bottom founded drilling rigs, combined drilling and production facilities either bottom founded or floating platforms, and deepwater mobile offshore drilling units including semi-submersibles and drillships. These are capable of operating in water depths up to 3,000 m. In this paper, we introduce the drilling system, which is mounted on the offshore drilling facilities.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.429-437
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• 1996

The purpose of this study is to correct the nodule abundance of FFG (Free Fall Grab) sampler on KODOS (Korea Deep Ocean Study) area in North-East Pacific Ocean. The image analysis of sea-floor photography was carried out for correcting the abundance of nodules, and the image enhancement techniques and edge detection method were used to discriminate between nodules and sediments. The trace of nodules on sediments was detected to reduce the fractionation effect in calculating the coverage of nodules. The three methods, using the coverage of nodules, using the volume density, and using corrected volume density, were utilized for the correction of the nodule abundance. The method using the coverage of nodules was more convenient and available for the correction of nodule abundance than the other two methods. The method using the corrected volume density had the highest confidence level compared with the other methods.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.709-717
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• 2013

This paper presents the development of a specialized underwater leg with a manipulator function(convertible-to-arm leg) for the seabed walking robot named CRABSTER200(CR200). The objective functions of the convertible-to-arm leg are to walk on the seabed and to work in underwater for precise seabed exploration and underwater tasks under coastal area with strong tidal current. In order to develop the leg, important design elements including the degree of freedom, dimensions, mass, motion range, joint structure/torque/angular-speed, pressure-resistance, watertight capability and cable protection are considered. The key elements of the convertible-to-arm leg are realized through concept/specific/mechanical design and implementation process with a suitable joint actuator/gear/controller selection procedure. In order to verify the performance of the manufactured convertible-to-arm leg, a 25bar pressure-resistant and watertight test using a high-pressure chamber and a joints operating test with posture control of the CR200 are performed. This paper describes the whole design, realization and verification process for implementation of the underwater convertible-to-arm leg.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.81-90
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• 2015

International Seabed Authority (ISA) is currently developing rules with regard to exploitation of manganese nodules which will be contained in its first regulations governing the exploitation of deep seabed mineral resources. A stakeholder survey was conducted in the early 2014 by ISA with the aim of facilitating participation of interested entities in the development process of the rules. The stakeholders who had replied to the survey included existing contractors, sponsoring States, environmentalists, academics, and nongovernmental organizations. Opinions given by them largely reflect their own interests. This paper aims to clarify the scope of the obligations regarding the environmental protection which may be imposed on contractors under the new regulations for the exploitation of manganese nodules. To do so, it first analyses the express provisions on environmental protection applicable to deep seabed mining included in the Law of the Sea Convention, its agreement on implementation of Part XI, and the regulations on exploration for manganese nodules. Secondly, it categorizes these obligations based on the categories of international obligations suggested by Combacau and Alland. Based on the categorizations this paper concludes that, in addition to the existing duties to protect deep seabed environment within the Law of the Sea Convention system, the following new obligations could be added: conservation of exploitation sites for a limited time after the contract is ceased; taking all necessary measures for rehabilitation of destroyed ecosystems that occurredas a result of mining activities; monitoring exploitation sites for a limited period time after the contract is ceased; observing rules and standards on safety of ships and environmental protection adopted under IMO instruments; regulation on the discharge of mine tailings from the facilities used for exploitation of deep sea minerals. Lastly, this paper attempts to provide ways of reflecting national interests in terms of potential obligations which may be included in the new regulations.