First Steps in Ifremer's Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Program- A 3000m Depth Operational Survey AUV for Environmental Monitoring

Abstract

This paper presents the new Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Program launched by the French Institute for the Sustainable Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer), for new programs related to environmental survey and monitoring. For several years Ifremer has been involved in technological development of intervention AUVs in collaboration with industrial partners. Historically, Ifremer was also a pioneer of underwater vehicles with the deep sea AUV, Epaulard in the 80’s (Michel et al. 84). The first step in the new Coastal AUV program is the development of a 3000m depth survey AUV, described in this paper and built by International Submarine Engineering, in partnership with French partners such as Cybernetix.