Want to know more about the significance of Underwater Autonomous Vechicles (AUV) to us? Check out this post by NOCI's Layton Quinton ⬇️
No this isn’t a WW2 bomb. What is it? It’s a simplified representation of an Underwater Autonomous Vehicle (or AUV)! Over the last 12 months or so I’ve become more involved with the AUV’s developed here at the National Oceanography Centre, particularly our AUTOSUB Long Range underwater vehicle which has some interesting, and now well proven, capabilities. What I find most interesting just generally though about AUVs is the way they can provide us with a better understanding of the ocean than ever before and go to places, such as under ice for weeks, or close to the seabed at great depths (in the case of AUTOSUB up to 6000m) where they can work reliably on long missions. Years ago, I figure these very hostile environments would have been both very dangerous and expensive to explore? Perhaps even more impressive, to me anyway, from an environmental perspective, there is the Carbon reduction benefit. The rechargeable battery powered AUV I mentioned earlier for example has the demonstrated capability of being able to operate without needing a ship. It can be launched and recovered from shore instead. A recent mission required it to undertake a 400km round trip commute in addition to completing its survey work where it captured many thousands of images of the seabed. Even when more remote locations do require autonomous underwater vehicles to be transported by ship fuel requirements can be reduced significantly since a fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles can work together to survey large areas independently of the ship using much less energy. So where is this all heading? Well, these vehicles have already proven themselves as indispensable for ocean research, monitoring and surveying and with continued advancements in AI, processing power and vehicle development its easy to see a lot more of these vehicles are going to be used in many new offshore applications. I think that overall that means more monitoring and better understanding of our oceans which is so vital to us as we face climate challenges. One final though is that from a linkedIn angle, and for those searching for the expanding career areas of the future, marine autonomy may well be worth investigating further!
