Page 46: of Marine Technology Magazine (June 2012)

The Best Way to Mount an AUV Conceptual design started in 2010 as they grappled with con- siderable road blocks. ?There were some limitations to inte-gration right off the bat,? reveals Lewis. They did not want to integrate the SBI technology into the central pressure vessel where the ?guts and glory? of the AUV are housed. That left the limited option of loading the sensors into the fore and aft  ood chambers. ?But then the team came up with the idea of mounting an external wing,? says Lewis. But where was the best place to mount it? After consider- ing everything from the bio-model of a hammerhead shark to the feedback from hydrodynamics colleagues, they selected the underside near the center of gravity using a special clamp designed to hold the array in place. With the weight balanced properly the Explorer?s shape had changed from a cylinder to an inverted mono- plane. Next they needed answers related to performance. The SBI can only capture high resolution images at speeds of three kilometers an hour Retrieving the Explorer after a successful 12-day trial with the external mock-up wing attached. Ron Lewis , REALM Project Manager ?...the rewards included new AUV survey services from PanGeo Subsea and signi cant investment in Memorial University?s design capabilities for hull design, vehicle con-trol, stability, and perfor- mance.?(Photo Courtesy Corwin Northcott) ?We are no longer limited to the physical size of the AUV. We have introduced another dimension?it was a torpedo and now we have the starship Enterprise?Ron Lewis46 MTRJune 2012MTR #5 (34-49).indd 46MTR #5 (34-49).indd 465/31/2012 10:28:17 AM5/31/2012 10:28:17 AM