Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are becoming accepted data-gathering tools within the marine science community in Europe, the US and elsewhere. Technology can now provide vehicles with a useful range and depth envelope. For example, the Southampton Oceanography Centre's Autosub-1 vehicle has already covered 263 km in a single oceanograpic survey mission, reaching depths of 500 m off Bermuda in September 1998. The challenge now is to 'free the technology from the research community. Potential direct and indirect benefits from the offshore energy industry's use of AUVs have been quantified. For one company, the benefits of using survey class AUVs has been estimated at dollar 60m over 5 years. The economics become more attractive as the industry moves to deeper water. While today's AUVs of long endurance are limited in depth, developments on the horizon in composite materials and high capacity, lightweight secondary batteries will enable 1000 km range, eight-day endurance and at least 1600 m diving depth to be in active service within the next two years. This paper will review the oceanographic survey achievements of the Autosub AUV over its 216 missions (to December 1999), working in UK, US and Bermudan waters. Moving to the future, the paper will illustrate how such an AUV could be used in the offshore industry for survey, monitoring and emergency response. Finally, we will describe the present Autosub development programme, scheduled to deliver an operational 1000 km, 1600 m vehicle by mid 2000.
Oceanographic surveys with a 50 hour endurance autonomous underwater vehicle
2000
5 Seiten, 5 Quellen
Conference paper
English
Oceanographic Surveys With a 50-Hour Endurance Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
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