Page 40: of Marine Technology Magazine (January 2014)

Subsea Vehicles: UUVs

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UUVs(ROV) and will continue to add to its ß eet to meet demand. C-Enduro recently underwent trials, organized by the Na- tional Oceanography Center (NOC), trials attended by the potential users from NOC and Royal Navy personnel who saw the C-Enduro operate autonomously and follow various courses set out by ASVÕs control system. The highlight of the two day event came when the vehicle followed a course spell- ing out ÔASVÕ. C-Enduro is designed to deliver a step change in oceano- graphic data collection, with an endurance of up to three months enabled by its power structure which can support up to 500 watts of payload power. The applications for the ve- hicle range from marine environmental surveying to security and defense roles. C-Enduro was developed under a UK Government-backed Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) initiated by the National Oceanographic CentreÕs (NOC) requirement for long endurance USVs for environmental research. The ini- tiative is co-funded by the National Environment Research Council (NERC), NOCÕs parent body, with the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and the Defense, Science and Technol- ogy Laboratories (DSTL). The team behind the development of the LEMUSV, led by ASV, includes Hyperdrive Ltd who investigated motor options and power management systems and CranÞ eld University who have conducted research into collision avoidance technologies. ASV undertook the detailed production design, build and commissioning of the fully operational, open ocean going C-Enduro vessel. The robust vehicle design utilises state of the art technologies from the consortium and was designed to operate in coastal or open ocean weather conditions, currents and sea states.SeaRobotics has deployed a ÒcollapsibleÓ unmanned sur- face vehicle (USV) in support of important Arctic Þ sheries research conducted by Florida International University (FIU). The collapsible, 4m USV was used to provide a broad range of survey data regarding the seabed off the shores of Point Bar- row, Alaska, the northernmost point in the U.S. At the request of FIU, SeaRobotics outÞ tted the USV with an array of sensors that included a Kongsberg EK-60 split- beam echo sounder, M3 multi-beam sonar, 1.8 MHz DIDSON imaging sonar, and a low-cost side-scan sonar system. This equipment enabled researchers from FIU to perform a bathy-metric survey of the seabed and collect other data regarding the health of Þ sheries located in the coastal waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.ÒWe generated some very exciting data using the USV while keeping our research personnel safely on shore. Safety Bibby Remote Intervention added two 150 hp Quasar ROVs to its ß eet.January/February 2014 40 MTRMTR #1 (34-49).indd 40MTR #1 (34-49).indd 401/23/2014 10:51:51 AM1/23/2014 10:51:51 AM

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