The underwater light field is affected by the geometry of the incident radiance, the sea-surface state, the inherent optical properties of the water-column constituents, the distribution of these constituents, and, in shallow areas, the bottom albedo. New instrumentation and platforms designed to assist in the quantification of the above are described. The new instrumentation includes the Marine Aggregated Particle Profiling and Enumerating Rover (MAPPER), the next-generation MAPPER II system, and the Bottom Classification and Albedo Package (BCAP). the new platforms include a custom manufactured remotely operated vehicle (ROV) designed to deploy the MAPPER II module, the BCAP module, and a vertical-profiling instrument suite, and an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) designed for optical measurements in coastal waters. These include the deployment of the BCAP module on long- range, bottom-mapping missions.
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