The DORIS project consortium, led by the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto in partnership with the University of Aveiro and the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, through the LSTS team (Laboratório de Sistemas e Tecnologias Subaquáticas) made the first practical demonstration of the system developed in the Ria de Aveiro on the 6th of September. Based on the main objective of the DORIS project, the development of an autonomous surface vehicle and a system capable of sampling the surface water microlayer, these tests were intended to be the first validation of the vehicle and sampler ever developed in a real environment. In addition, all the command and control software of this new autonomous surface vehicle developed by the LSTS-FEUP team was also tested.
The validation was carried out through synchronous water collections carried out using the traditional method (manually from a small boat) and the automatic method with the sampler installed in the vehicle. The water samples were later processed and analyzed by a team of researchers from the Applied Microbiology Laboratory of CESAM and the Department of Biology of the University of Aveiro with the purpose of validating the sampling system. New campaigns are planned for October in order to obtain more data and correct small inaccuracies in the sampling system.