AUV System Spec Sheet

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Echo Ranger configuration

Platform: Echo Ranger
Developer: Boeing Defense, Space & Security
Manufacturer: Boeing Defense, Space & Security
Commercial Operator: Global Oceans

Summary

Echo ranger was developed as a joint venture effort between Oceaneering, Boeing and Fugro. 

Echo Ranger has an easily-configurable payload bay. It is based on the OSIRIS vehicle developed by Boeing in the early 1990s. OSIRIS was a modular design and fully autonomous. It has a maximum depth of 10,000 feet. The large displacement platform is 18 feet long and 50 inches in diameter, square with rounded corners. It has a maximum speed of 8 knots and a normal operating speed of 3-6 knots. It has a nominal operating time of 28 hours.

This COTS-designed system with a maximum operating depth of 3000 meters has logged more than 2000 miles in tests and surveys (up to 28 hours) and could be configured for 30-day missions.

Global Oceans and Boeing’s Unmanned Underwater Systems Group in Huntington Beach, California are developing an operational and management plan to make available to the ocean science community the use of Boeing’s Echo Ranger AUV as an integrated, “bundled” system facilitated by Global Oceans’ chartered platform and modular laboratory model. The Global Oceans/Echo Ranger package will include technical and logistics support from Boeing, including on-site operational support, and will allow multiple scientists to share in the placement of sensors and sampling instrumentation on each deployment within Echo Rangers’ large instrument bay and exterior surface.

Echo Ranger is configured for containerized shipment to any expedition departure port and together with the large deck footprint and heavy crane/lift capacity available on platform supply vessels provides a feasible method of deployment.

Echo Ranger is a large-diameter, 18.5′ length AUV designed and built by Boeing to execute multiple data-gathering and sampling tasks including water sampling, physical properties data and acoustic mapping. PI-designed equipment can be added to interior ports or attached externally. Echo Ranger’s operational depth rating of 10,000 feet and 80 mile range provides a viable tool for short-term mission deployment in coastal, polar and open ocean regions.

Boeing’s Echo Ranger, together with the geographically flexible deployment capability of Global Oceans, and a fleet of next generation Boeing AUVs, will offer a growing resource for ocean scientists to utilize on a project basis for years to come.