Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) for Marine Monitoring and Surveying

Meteorological & Oceanographic Monitoring

With their long-endurance capabilities and ease of deployment, AutoNaut USVs are ideal for a wide variety of meteorological and oceanographic monitoring missions. The unmanned vessels can either act as a station-keeping buoy for weather monitoring, or conduct survey transects and measure a range of environmental conditions.

Passive Acoustic Monitoring

Featuring near-silent operation, AutoNaut USVs are ideal platforms for Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM). When equipped with hydrophone sensors, the unmanned vessels provide a mobile, low-noise solution for marine acoustic surveying, including unobtrusive monitoring of marine mammals.

Water Quality Monitoring

AutoNaut USVs can monitor important indicators of water quality, including conductivity, salinity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll levels, pH, turbidity and dissolved organic matter.

Communications Gateways

The AutoNaut 3.5 USV can be configured as a long-duration surface communications gateway and information hub, featuring a range of sensor options and the ability to harvest data and provide links to autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), seafloor communications and sensor nodes, and other subsea assets. Information can be relayed over-the-horizon via satellite link.

Marine Life Monitoring

With silent capabilities, zero emissions, and the ability to operate autonomously for weeks at a time, AutoNaut USVs are ideally suited for monitoring of fish populations, coral reef conditions and other marine life surveying.

Surveillance

The persistent and silent operation of AutoNaut USVs make them capable maritime surveillance platforms, providing ISR (Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) and ground-truthing of satellite remote sensing. Advanced payloads include electronic emission detectors, thermal imaging systems, and cameras for capturing video and still images both above and below the waterline.

Weather Stations

• WindSonic Wind Sensors – 2-axis ultrasonic wind measurement outputting true speed and direction
• AirMar Ultrasonic Weather Stations – outputs apparent & true wind, barometric pressure, air temperature, GPS location
• Vaisala PTB110 Barometer – features accurate barometric pressure measurements over a wide temperature range
• CS300 Pyranometer – compatible with most Campbell Scientific dataloggers and designed for continuous, long-term, unattended operation in adverse conditions

Oceanography

• YSI EXO2 Water Quality Sonar – measures conductivity, salinity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll levels, pH, turbidity and dissolved organic matter
• Valeport Mini-CTD Probe – features a variety of pre-programmed sampling modes, and available in both 6000m titanium and 500 acetal versions
• Oxygen Optodes – high-accuracy absolute oxygen concentration measurement without repeated calibrations with a response time of <8 sec
• ECO Triplet Flurometer and Back-scattering Sensor – measures RGB scattering and chlorophyll/CDOM/phycoerythrin/phycocyanin/rhodamine/uranine (fluorescein) fluorescence

Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP)

• Teledyne Marine Workhorse Monitor ADCP – high-reliability four-beam solution with extreme accuracy
• Nortek Signature 1000/500 – designed for costal surveying, turbulence and current studies, and sediment transport studies

Wave Measurement

Anderaa Motus Wave Sensor 5729 – provides accurate measurement of wave characteristics, with a high sampling rate and the ability to distinguish direction of swells and wind driven waves

Passive Acoustic Monitoring

MicroPAM Monitoring and Mitigation System – miniature rugged system with interchangeable hydrophone cables for single or multi-sensor arrays