\section{Future Tasks}\label{future-tasks}

The development of this platform is an ongoing effort at the Monterey
Bay Aquarium Research Institute. The sensor selection, however, has
nearly reached its maturity. The current configuration's coverage rates
are limited by the small swath of the available lidar. Better
integration of the system components is still in progress, most notably
extending 1PPS time discipline to all systems. There are two major
directions that future developments are intended to take.

Currently in development is a modified ROV tool-sled that will mount all
active sensor components on an articulating frame. This effort will
gather more detailed data in high-relief environments. For example, our
surveys at Sur Ridge to date have focused on horizontally level sectors
of this feature. By tilting the sensor array, we will be able to collect
data from the vertical walls of the ridge, where many animals of
interest to our biologists inhabit. Repeat surveys of Monterey Canyon
walls will allow us to study the slope failures that lead to some of the
results shown in Section \ref{repeat-mapping}. This task involves some
challenging efforts in navigation and mission planning to maintain the
array as normal to the target plane as possible.

The second effort is to continue to develop software and control
algorithms that can allow this package to eventually be adapted to an
autonomous platform. This involves software efforts to add autonomy to
all aspects of the system, as well as implementing subsea data storage.
Major challenges include quality control on the stereo vision system,
adaptive range control on both the lidar and sonar, and creating
real-time available data from survey systems for use in navigation
solutions.