Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Facility (AUV)
The Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) called Sirius is designed for undertaking high resolution survey work. This experimental platform is a modified version of a mid-size robotic vehicle called Seabed built at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The submersible is equipped with a mechanically scanned low frequency terrain-aiding sonar, a depth sensor, Doppler Velocity Log (DVL) including a compass with integrated roll and pitch sensors, Ultra Short Baseline Acoustic Positioning System (USBL), forward looking obstacle avoidance sonar, a conductivity/temperature sensor and a high resolution stereo camera pair and strobes. The vehicle is controlled by an on-board, PC-104 based computing platform which is used for sampling sensor information and running the vehicle's low level control algorithms.
- The AUV on-board the AIMS ship R/V Cape Ferguson being deployed off the coast at Exmouth, WA
As part of the establishment of the AUV Facility, IMOS will support deployment of the Sirius AUV which will be made available to scientists on a competitive basis in order to assist marine projects in Australia. IMOS will cover the costs of AUV calibration, preparation, insurance, transport within Australia, and access to and storage of the data. Ship-time for the deployment, tracking and recovery of the AUV are the responsibility of the local node requesting the deployment. The use of the AUV must comply with IMOS’objective to “offer open access to data arising from research infrastructure provided through the IMOS to the national and international marine research communities”.