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A solar-powered autonomous underwater vehicle
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2003
Year
EngineeringUnderwater SystemField RoboticsMarine EngineeringUnmanned VehicleAuv UsefulnessSystems EngineeringMarine VehiclesAutonomous Ocean PlatformsRoboticsUnderwater RoboticsSolar PowerEnergy StorageAutonomous Underwater VehiclesPropulsionAuv PlatformsUnderwater RobotUnderwater VehicleOcean EngineeringAerospace EngineeringSolar Powered AuvUnderwater TechnologyUnderwater Sensing
AUVs have been viewed as promising for surveillance, environmental monitoring, and data portals, but battery life limits their long‑term deployment. The paper presents the development of a solar‑powered AUV that can recharge on‑station to enable long‑term deployment and station‑keeping, addressing the growing demand for extended AUV missions. The SAUV is a multimission platform that surfaces to recharge its batteries via solar cells, communicates through Iridium/satellite or RF links, uses a bi‑directional acoustic link for sub‑sea data, and incorporates engineered propulsion, telemetry, and mission‑control algorithms to support weeks‑to‑months continuous deployment.
To meet the rapidly expanding requirements for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), Falmouth Scientific, Inc. (FSI) is working in cooperation with the Autonomous Undersea Systems Institute (AUSI) and Technology Systems Inc. (TSI) to develop a vehicle capable of long-term deployment and station-keeping duties. It has long been considered that AUV platforms, in principle, could provide an effective solution for surveillance (security and anti-terrorist), environmental monitoring and data portal (to sub-sea instruments) requirements, but limitations in battery life have limited AUV usefulness in such applications. The concept of a vehicle that would allow on-station recharging of batteries, using solar cells, has been presented as a means to significantly enhance the effectiveness of AUV platforms where long-term or ongoing deployment is required. The Solar Powered AUV (SAUV) is designed for continuous deployment (weeks to months) without requirement for recovery for service, maintenance or recharging. The SAUV under development is designed as a multimission platform to allow payload configuration by the end-user to optimize the SAUV for coastal/harbor monitoring, data portal (to moored sub-surface instruments) applications, or any other application where long-term deployment is required. The SAUV is designed to reside on the surface while recharging batteries and then to execute its programmed mission. While on the surface the SAUV is designed to communicate via Iridium/sup /spl reg// satellite or RF communications link to upload collected data and to allow reprogramming of mission profiles. A bi-directional acoustic link provides for data acquisition from sub-sea instrumentation. Development of the SAUV has generated numerous engineering challenges in design of the solar recharge system, design of a propulsion/direction control system capable of handling the unique shape requirement, design of the telemetry system, and development of mission control algorithms that include surfacing and battery recharge requirements. This paper discusses some of the more pertinent details unique to the solar AUV design requirements.