AUVAC

SCOUTING AROUND FOR ULTRA HIGH RESOLUTION AUV SIDE SCAN

June 27, 2014 via – Ocean News & Technology

The need for systems that can provide visibility in the world of underwater research is exploding. Many fields of study are expanding, with new missions and applications where underwater visibility is required multiplying every day. In the past, most of the general public had no idea what it took to do underwater rescue or research or what a complicated task working under the water is. It is now fairly routine for the general public to see images of the types of technology used in underwater search and research in the media. Terms like Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV), Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV), Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) and Side Scan Sonar are becoming more familiar after the horrific events of Flight 370 in Malaysia and other over-water tragedies. Over the last several months, as the search unfolds before our eyes on prime time television, it is hard not to pay attention as scientists proposed many “new” technologies and strategies to locate the Boeing 777.

Robotic submarines make waves in the oil and gas sector

April 15, 2014 via – The Engineer

AUVs are now relatively widely used by both the oceanographic research community and the defence sector, where their ability to quietly operate for long periods deep beneath the surface and to return detailed data from the seabed, makes them ideal for a range of applications. But now, dramatic mprovements in capability, coupled with our insatiable demand for energy, are driving a growing use of the technology in the offshore energy industry.

The trend was one of the key talking points at London’s recent Oceanology International conference (March 2014), where manufacturers, survey companies and energy firms all pointed to the growing use of AUVs for a range of subsea survey and inspection tasks. Indeed, Tom Hiller, a senior engineer from Teledyne Gavia — one of the leading AUV manufacturers — told The Engineer that operators are now even beginning to specify AUV solutions in contracts.

The technology certainly has some compelling advantages: AUVs are faster than the remotely operated tethered vehicles (ROVs) that are widely used in the offshore sector. And, because they’re able to operate autonomously under their own power, are less of a drain on resources: operators can put them in the water, leave them, and go off and do something else. But it’s the quality of the data they can gather that’s really driving their use. Able to fly metres above the seabed — or close to subsea installations — AUVs enable operators to rapidly deploy a range of high-frequency sonar systems and cameras to gather detailed subsea data.

What’s more, the technology also enables operators to access areas that are off-limits to other equipment, an attractive capability for an industry that’s moving into ever-more remote environments.

Exploring the oceans – 20,000 colleagues under the sea

January 9, 2013 via – The Economist

SAILING the seven seas is old hat. The latest trick is to glide them. Sea gliders are small unmanned vessels which are now cruising the briny by the hundred. They use a minuscule amount of power, so they can stay out for months. And, being submarines, they are rarely troubled by the vicissitudes of weather at the surface. Their only known enemies are sharks (several have come back covered in tooth marks) and fishing nets.

Sea gliders are propelled by buoyancy engines. These are devices that pump oil in and out of an external bladder which, because it deflates when it is empty, means that the craft’s density changes as well. This causes the glider to ascend or sink accordingly, but because it has wings some of that vertical force is translated into horizontal movement. Such movement is slow (the top speed of most gliders is about half a knot), but the process is extremely efficient.

That means gliders can be sent on long missions. In 2009, for example, a glider called Scarlet Knight, operated by Rutgers University, in New Jersey, crossed the Atlantic on a single battery charge, though it took seven months to do so.

Since that crossing, gliders have been deployed on many previously unthinkable missions. In 2010 teams from the American navy, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and iRobot, a robot-maker based in Bedford, Massachusetts, used them to track the underwater effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. That same year a glider owned by Oregon State University watched an underwater volcano erupting in the Lau basin near Tonga. In 2011 a glider made by another firm, Teledyne Webb of East Falmouth, also in Massachusetts, tracked seaborne radiation leaked from the tsunami-damaged reactors in Fukushima, Japan. And the University of Newfoundland is planning to use gliders equipped with sonar to inspect icebergs, to work out whether they are a threat to underwater cables and other seabed infrastructure.

UUVs rise to the surface

July 1, 2012 via – Military and Aerospace Electronics

Unmanned underwater vehicles are becoming feasible for a wide variety of applications, from autonomous ship hull inspection to oil and gas exploration, while military leaders are developing UUVs for long-endurance underwater intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions.

Unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) in the past have been niche machines used for research and specific pre-programmed tasks. The difficulties of building and operating these submersibles made them less useful than their airborne and land-bound kin. With technology constantly moving forward, however, UUVs are expanding into the mainstream with the ability to complete a wider variety of missions than their research-specific predecessors.

UUVs face a unique challenge that other unmanned vehicles do not: the ocean. This is a corrosive environment in which high pressure often can be present. Marine animals as small as microorganisms and as large as whales can interfere with operation. In the ocean, communications are virtually non-existent, and ruggedizing these underwater craft, without exception, means they must be either waterproof, airtight, or both. As a result, UUVs need to be largely autonomous, able to withstand the rigors of the marine environment, and be among the most power-efficient vehicles designed.

Unmanned Underwater Vehicles is bigger better or smaller smarter?

June 1, 2012 via – Naval Forces Magazine

The long, cylindrical streamlined torpedo shape is common to many underwater vehicles (UUV). And since the standard submarine torpedo tube is 533mm in diameter, many systems intended for delivery using a submarine are limited to that diameter. There are inherent payload and energy storage limitations imposed by the maximum diameter of the 533mm vehicle. But while many UUvs with naval applications available today have the shape and diameter of a torpedo there are new systems that are considerably larger. Modularity and open architecture mean that basic platforms can be configured for civilian or military use.

SeaCat Inspects 24km long Water Tunnel

May 1, 2012 via – Technology Systems Corp

In a mission lasting almost 7Hr, the autonomous underwater vehicle SeaCat made by Atlas Electronik dived through a water supply tunnel 24km long in the vicinity of Stuttgart, sucessfully investigating the tube for damage. with this survey on 6 march 2012, it at last became possible to inspect the tunnel known as “Albstollen” in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg for the first time in 40 years.

The Quest to Map Titanic

April 12, 2012 via – Woods Hole Oceagraphic Institute

Bill Lange was aboard Knorr in 1985 when the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution research vessel brought back the first grainy black-and-white images of Titanic resting on the seafloor. Ever since, Lange has made it his quest to push the boundaries of imaging technology, engineering one-of-a-kind camera systems and operating them in the deepest and most extreme parts of the world’s oceans.

Lange, who directs the Advanced Imaging and Visualization Laboratory at WHOI, has returned to the Titanic site several times. He played a major role in a 2010 expedition that yielded new, richly detailed views of the ship and wreck site that were published in 2012, the 100th anniversary of Titanic’s sinking.

The original Navy-funded expeditions in 1985 and 1986 used Titanic as a target to test pioneering deep-sea technology. Were camera systems on the list?

Bob Ballard and a few of us had dreams of bringing color video back from the deep, but camera systems to do that didn’t exist at the time. Designing a deep-sea camera system is a lot more than just taking a camera off the shelf and putting it in a pressure-resistant tube. There’s a lot of engineering that goes into making these cameras work efficiently at depths of more than 13,000 feet, withstand pressures of 10,000 pounds per square inch and a range of temperatures from 100°F on deck to near freezing on the seafloor; operate on really low power; and produce high-optical-resolution images in very low light levels. There really isn’t a big market for camera systems like that, so it’s not economical for a commercial vendor to build one.

As it turned out, Titanic has been a great driver for advancing our imaging, lighting, and other technologies in the deep sea. The constant desire of people to know more about Titanic has provided funding and resources to go back to Titanic over the years. It helped drive our desire to keep bringing technology to the next level and improving the imaging capabilities for the scientists and the public.

Run Silent, Run Deep, Run Solo

January 31, 2012 via – EH Publishing, Robotic Trends

Autonomous underwater vehicles can go where humans fear to dive, but communications remains a challenge.

High-flying drones, such as General Atomic’s Predator, create headlines in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. But cruising stealthily beneath the waves is an equally impressive fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). These vessels are helping organizations, including the U.S. Navy, major oil companies, and various scientific research bodies retrieve vital information, deactivate mines, support repair and maintenance operations, and handle an array of other vital tasks more efficiently, and in many instances more safely, than would be possible if manned vessels or divers were used.

“Any unmanned application has tremendous benefits,” says Dr. Rand LeBouvier, a retired Navy captain who now works in the government military sector at Bluefin Robotics Corp., an AUV manufacturer located in Quincy, Mass. “In addition to the traditional dull, dirty, [and] dangerous applications, as well as saving manpower, money, and time, unmanned underwater systems give you access to places you would never be able to go with a manned system.” LeBouvier also notes that sensor-loaded AUVs are bringing to fruition a centuries-old dream of generations of sailors and marine researchers: “a transparent ocean.”

Going unmanned in the deep

January 26, 2012 via – AUVSI

As advances in the technology continue, Dan McLeod, senior program manager atLockheed Martin, anticipates growing interest for AUVs to augment ROV capabilities for subsea oil and gas operations.

As a result of increased capability, AUVs are more frequently being used for daunting subsea applications. Missions requiring long endurance are best suited for the technologies and include pipeline monitoring, site surveying, environmental surveying, equipment inspection and other applications requiring extensive time at sea. However, AUVs are still not capable enough to replace ROVs. While AUVs offer advantages such as tether-free operations, operating speeds of up to 4 knots and long endurance, according to McLeod the systemslack intervention capability and the ability to transport tons of heavy equipment to underwater worksites. While McLeod anticipates AUVs could one day be capable of turning valves and accomplishing more complicated tasks, for now they will augment, rather than replace, their remotely operated counterparts.

Underwater archaeology: Hunt for the ancient mariner

January 25, 2012 via – Nature

Armed with high-tech methods, researchers are scouring the Aegean Sea for the world’s oldest shipwrecks.

Foley and a few competitors are using high-tech approaches such as autonomous robots and new search strategies that they say have a good chance of locating the most ancient of shipwrecks. If they succeed, they could transform archaeologists’ understanding of a crucial period in human history, when ancient mariners first ventured long distances across the sea.