Community News

AUVs: Getting Defensive

May 14, 2015 – via Kongsberg Maritime

The defense community is ahead of the commercial market with regard to processing real-time high resolution data in-mission and making the vehicle respond to it.” Richard Mills, Kongsberg Maritime

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Navy Will Take ‘Asymmetric’ Approaches in Undersea Warfare

May 14, 2015 – via U S Navy

The Navy is looking to use the 100-mile torpedoes in conjunction with unmanned aerial systems that are launched off the ship to do reconnaissance.

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Meet the AutoNaut

May 14, 2015 – via MOST Submarine

AutoNaut is the only vessel on the market which uses pitch and roll to propel herself forwards. The monohull has a draft of less than half a meter which reduces fouling and entanglement and increases efficiency; sensors mounted through the hull also have an uninterrupted view of the water column below. The hull is carefully designed so that in the event of capsize, she rights herself and carries on with her mission.

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House Boosts Funding for Underwater Tech

May 13, 2015 – via Office of Naval Research

One of the items Forbes is trying to fund is the Fleet Modular Autonomous Unmanned Vehicle (FMAUV), “a rapid-development project to address emerging fleet capability needs,”

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Hydroid Announces AUV Training Schedule for 2015

May 12, 2015 – via Hydroid

Five REMUS training courses planned for May through October

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Scientists develop new methods to track ocean biodiversity

May 12, 2015 – via Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

The purpose of the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network is to measure open-ocean biodiversity. MBON scientists may use an MBARI autonomous underwater vehicle to sample environmental DNA.

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‘Roboeel’ could explore the alien oceans of the Solar System

May 11, 2015 – via NASA

“Roboeel” is designed to get around the issue by using magnetic fields, and not the Sun, as its power source. The underwater rover would use its “tentacle-like” appendages as electrodynamic tethers to capture energy from shifting magnetic fields on Europa

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NASA Funds Electricity-Harvesting Robotic Space Eel With Explosive Jet Thrusters and Electroluminescent Skin

May 11, 2015 – via NASA

What the Cornell University researchers are instead suggesting is a method of harvesting energy from the powerful magnetic fields that are created by, and around, Jupiter. The idea is that these dynamic magnetic fields will generate flux throughout the conductive water column in Europa’s oceans, and that by extending an electrodynamic tether out some distance (likely a few meters) from the robot, you could harvest enough electricity to power all of the robot’s systems.

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MIT-developed system allows robots to plan underwater missions autonomously

May 7, 2015 – via MIT

The technology is built on levels of decision-making. One component makes high-level decisions (such as picking sites to explore), while another plans the optimum route, and a final component works to identify and address any issues that arise. “We can give the system choices, like, ‘Go to either this or that science location and map it out,’ or ‘Communicate via an acoustic modem, or a satellite link,'”

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Engineers hand “cognitive” control to underwater robots

May 7, 2015 – via MIT

By giving robots control of higher-level decision-making, Williams says such a system would free engineers to think about overall strategy, while AUVs determine for themselves a specific mission plan. Such a system could also reduce the size of the operational team needed on research cruises. And, most significantly from a scientific standpoint, an autonomous planning system could enable robots to explore places that otherwise would not be traversable. For instance, with an autonomous system, robots may not have to be in continuous contact with engineers, freeing the vehicles to explore more remote recesses of the sea.

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MH370: Winter seas force search teams to halt AUV operation

May 6, 2015 – via Joint Agency Coordination Centre

Rough seas have complicated the task of launching and retrieving the vehicle, says the co-ordination centre: “The decision has been made to suspend AUV operations in the search area during the winter months.”

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NATO researchers test underwater drones in Norway

May 6, 2015 – via CMRE

The goal for researchers is to prove concepts for allies interested in better submarine detection, at a fraction of the cost of new submarines. They say the future is to network these vehicles and improve their capabilities to the point where submarines of the future may even be dronelike.

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Australia to scale back MH370 search, area may be refined

May 6, 2015 – via Joint Agency Coordination Centre

Over 75% of the seafloor in the existing search area has already been searched with clue found. Transport Ministers from Australia, China and Malaysia announced on April 16 that they would double the current search zone to 120,000 sq km to “cover the entire highest probability area identified by expert analysis” if no trace of the missing plane is found by late May

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Liquid Robotics launches Open Oceans Partner Program

May 5, 2015 – via Liquid Robotics

The Open Oceans Partner Program is an important expansion of the Company’s overall partner strategy to collaborate with industry leaders to provide extensible, high value, and affordable solutions built upon the Wave Glider platform.

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NIWA’s glider launched into service for sea science

May 4, 2015 – via National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research

The aim of this research programme is to understand how cross-shelf exchange processes (boundary currents and upwelling) influence coastal productivity, biogeochemistry and ecosystem connectivity.

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Movements of fish, bats inspire next-gen robots

May 4, 2015 – via Northwestern University

Their work in quantifying their movements has informed the design of a free-swimming robot that moves in all directions and, more broadly, could produce a class of robots that operate more efficiently and thus uses less battery power.

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Safer Packaging Sought For Lithium Batteries

May 1, 2015 – via IATA

The ICAO’s dangerous goods panel agreed this week to set up a group of experts to develop safer packaging for the transport of lithium ion batteries used in phones and laptops.

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Listening for whales and fish in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean

April 30, 2015 – via NOAA

Stretching from the northern Gulf of Maine to the New York Bight in the northwest Atlantic Ocean, NEPAN provides year-round, long-term information on the presence and physical distribution of vocal whales, dolphins and porpoises and some fish species. The archived and near-real-time data comes from recorders on various platforms ranging from fixed bottom mounted and surface buoys to mobile underwater vehicles and surface wave gliders.

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2G Robotics’ ULS-500 Underwater Laser Scanner Now Interfaced with QINSy

April 28, 2015 – via 2G Robotics

The ULS-500 underwater laser scanner is now compatible with the QPS hydrographic data acquisition, navigation, and processing software, QINSy.

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Unmanned Sea Systems Market Entering Turbulent Waters

April 28, 2015 – via Forecast International

The torpedo segment is worth $8.1 billion, with the USV and UUV segments worth $6.1 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively.

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