Mapping the Moon: Using a lightweight AUV to survey the site of the 17th century ship ‘La Lune’

TLDR

The 17th‑century wreck of La Lune lies 90 m beneath the coast of Toulon, France. The study aims to use a highly reconfigurable autonomous underwater vehicle to rapidly produce a detailed map of the wreck, providing a base map for future archaeological work. The authors deployed a lightweight, research‑driven AUV equipped with high‑resolution optical sensors, conducting a survey that generated a detailed optical map of the site. The results demonstrate that lightweight AUVs reduce operational costs and survey time while delivering high‑quality data and enabling access to deep sites inaccessible to conventional methods.

Abstract

This paper describes the use of a research-driven, highly reconfigurable autonomous underwater vehicle for surveying the site of the historical shipwreck of La Lune. This wreck, from the XVII century, lies in 90m of water near the coast of Toulon in France. The goal of this survey was to create a fast but detailed map of the site, to serve as a base map for subsequent archaeological intervention. The paper overviews the survey setup and the methods used to generate a high resolution optical map. It also highlights some of the important advantages that lightweight AUVs present for archaeological survey missions in terms of operational costs, survey time, the quality of both the acquired data and the mapping outcome, and access to deep sites that are not reachable by traditional archaeological methods.