An Autonomous Surface Vehicle for Long Term Operations
This addresses the problem of costly and limited manual or vessel-based monitoring for researchers and stakeholders in marine environments, but it appears incremental as it focuses on a specific vehicle design.
The paper tackles the challenge of environmental monitoring in marine environments by presenting the design of an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) capable of covering large areas and operating for extended periods, with analysis and deployment lessons discussed.
Environmental monitoring of marine environments presents several challenges: the harshness of the environment, the often remote location, and most importantly, the vast area it covers. Manual operations are time consuming, often dangerous, and labor intensive. Operations from oceanographic vessels are costly and limited to open seas and generally deeper bodies of water. In addition, with lake, river, and ocean shoreline being a finite resource, waterfront property presents an ever increasing valued commodity, requiring exploration and continued monitoring of remote waterways. In order to efficiently explore and monitor currently known marine environments as well as reach and explore remote areas of interest, we present a design of an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) with the power to cover large areas, the payload capacity to carry sufficient power and sensor equipment, and enough fuel to remain on task for extended periods. An analysis of the design and a discussion on lessons learned during deployments is presented in this paper.