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4 kg in air, rated to 500 m depth, and able to operate for 12- ably put 10 or more in the water.

20 hours (depending on battery type) at 1 m/s. The slightly The company has also been exploring alternative surface larger ecoSUBm5 Small-AUV is 1m long, weighing 12 kg, nodes, such as USVs. Having already worked with a C- rated at 500 m and 1200 m depth, and able to operate for 18- Worker 6 to trial ecoSUB deployment, and with AutoNauts, 30 hours at 1 m/s. to act as a surface node, it’s now working on Autonauts car- ecoSUBs work together largely through acoustic posi- rying multiple ecoSUBs to a speci? c location or carrying tioning, using GPS at the surface and acoustics underwater them and deploying them when asked, as well as being a (with modems developed by the University of Newscastle) surface node and communications gateway. in an inverted long baseline array (LBL) type arrangement. The next step is another Innovate UK project, as yet unan-

Vehicles at the surface (with a GPS signal), broadcast their nounced, which will start bringing arti? cial intelligence to position to the underwater vehicles, which triangulate their the vehicles (AI), so that the vehicles can “shoal” indepen- positions relative to the surface position and feeds that in- dently, says Sloane. “The bene? t of a shoal is that, as each formation into onboard dead reckoning. ecoSUB has now vehicle understands how it’s being effected by the environ- also added Water Linked Doppler velocity logs (DVLs), to ment, as a group they can ? gure out the best way to approach further improve positioning accuracy, making them suitable the mission.” for operations where greater accuracy is required, such as mine counter measures using side scan sonar, says Sloane. EvoLogics “We’re able to put 10 ecoSUBS in the water doing a lawn While EvoLogics’ main products are underwater commu- mower survey at ? ve different depths over two, three, four nications and positioning, the company has also been devel- hours and really get a picture of that chunk of water in three oping its own vehicles and now also navigation software, dimensions,” he says. “That’s attractive to science, but also so that they can work together in swarms, react to chang- oil and gas, when looking at process water or a leak event or ing conditions and communicate with a main control center. oil spill dispersant. They’re also affordable,” noting that “at These capabilities are being combined into vehicles like its £10,000 a pop for a Micro-AUV” organizations can afford- PingGuin, a penguin shape-vehicle, but will also be able to www.marinetechnologynews.com 21

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