AUV systems research at the NRC-IOT: an update

This paper provides general information on autonomous underwater systems (vehicles). The associated ideas lead directly to considerations that affect the design of fully-autonomous vehicles. We include a discussion of some of the engineering, logistical and systems-integration aspects of autonomous operations, including the use of multiple vehicles in a coordinated "fleet". We outline some of the technical challenges associated with working within a limited energy budget and mention some possible strategies for vehicle-to-vehicle communications and for vehicle-network configurations and management. The results from this research permit the planners and developers of autonomous vehicle systems to better allocate such limited assets in order to provide more effective operations in hazardous environments. We describe the design of one instance of such a vehicle, in the form of a highly-manoeuvrable autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). We also describe our initial successes and lessons learned, and, our plans for subsequent development of the AUV "C-SCOUT" and its role as a prototype member of a small "fleet" of AUVs. We describe some parallel work-in-progress that has commercial application in support of the Canadian East Coast offshore oil and gas industry. This work involves a single AUV carrying suitable sensors to detect and quantify the presence of certain chemicals in ocean water samples.