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NOC's New AUV Completes First Trials
27 Jan 2008
Following a brief test deployment in Falmouth Bay, Autosub6000, the new 5.5m long, 2,800kg deepwater Autonomous Underwater Vehicle developed by National Oceanography Centre engineers at Southampton, has successfully completed its first sea trials in the North Atlantic from aboard the UK's largest general purpose oceanographic research vessel, RRS Discovery.
The National Oceanography Centre's Autosub6000 is lifted into its recovery cradle following deepsea trials in the North Atlantic.
The main aim of the trials was to establish that the AUV is capable of science missions at depths of at least 4,500m. The trials realised a depth rating of 4,556m, with effective control and navigation supported by a Linquest Trackline 10000 Ultra Short Base Line (USBL) and telemetry system working well to a slant range of over 7km. Later navigation tests proved the accuracy of the vehicle's dead reckoned navigation system, shown to be drifting less than 1m for every 1km traveled.
Powered by rechargeable batteries, Autosub6000 can operate autonomously for up to 60 hours, or over ranges of 300km. Both capabilities, says the NOC, can be doubled with further development funding. The vehicle's free flooded nose section can house any generic scientific payload such as cameras, sonars, chemical sensors, samplers and microstructure probes. Its navigation system uses an Ixsea PHINS Fibre Optic Gyro based inertial navigation facility connected to an RD Instruments 300 kHz ADCP. Control modes include constant altitude and depth, and up-down profiling.
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