Field Campaigns

The technologies, that will be developed during BASTA, will be combined with state-of-the-art techniques and deployed for field campaigns in different sites in the Baltic Sea and North Sea. Complementary use of sensors and a combination of ship-based and smart AUV-based surveys will be a key factor. With the field campaigns, the consortium pursues the following targets:

  • Testing newly developed technologies and survey approaches
  • Acquiring data for the training of neural networks
  • Verifying workflows and data quality metrics

Cruise 1


The first BASTA cruise will be conducted in May 2020 with Research Vessel (RV) Belgica. The scientists on board the vessel will perform surveys around Helgoland and Wilhelmshaven. During the survey, a combination of multibeam echosounder, sub-bottom profiler as well as towed side-scan sonar and magnetometers will be utilized for data acquisition. Furthermore, initial tests of the use of two AUVs for the detection of munition will be conducted.


Image: RV Belgica

Cruise 2


For the second cruise, BASTA scientists will board RV Alkor in November 2020 to investigate numerous munition dump sites in the German Baltic Sea.