Low-cost Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Underwater Acoustic Inspections

CALVO, O. A.; SOUSA, ANDRÉ; J. BIBILONI; CURTI, H. J.; ACOSTA, GERARDO; A. F. ROZENFELD

Journal of Maritime Research

Spanish Society of Maritime Research (SEECMAR)

Lugar: Santander; Año: 2009 vol. 6 p. 37 - 52

1697-4840

The design considerations of a low-cost Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) are presented in this article. Periodic surveys are needed in the preventive maintennance of submarine structures of offshore industries. The advanteges of performing them with AUV´s instead of Remote Operated Vehicles (ROV) or Towed Unmanned Devices are the lower costs involved and a better data quality in the inspecction missions. Through EU funded projects (AUVI and Autotracker), and Spanish funded project IOGECS, the constructions of a low-cost prototype for petths of 100m AUV was initiated. Previous results and design considerations and proposed solutions, as well as a descriptrion of the hardware employed, the sensors in the payload, and the mission replanning are described in this work.