AUVAC

Our Mission

The Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Applications Center (AUVAC) is an incubator formed by an association of academic, private sector, and government organizations to advance AUV system and subsystem technology and to promote AUV interoperability and availability in support of the international ocean community's needs.

"The role of unmanned systems is evolving to the point where we are now surveying our country's harbors – both our inner harbors and just outside our harbors as well. So I think that when you look at expeditionary warfare and mine warfare, in that regard, that is where unmanned systems can play an extremely significant role,"

Structure and Facilities

AUVAC is a program of the Autonomous Undersea Systems Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing AUV technology, promoting interoperability, and increasing availability of AUV/UUV systems in order to support the needs of the AUV community.

The goal of AUVAC is to advance the development, utilization, and integration of AUV systems. AUVAC is an effort to share information and resources within the AUV community, both nationally and internationally. It is a program supported initially by the Office of Naval Research and AUVAC member organizations. Its objective is to grow into a self sustaining organization funded by its activities within the international ocean community.

AUVAC is an association of government, academic, and private sector organizations, each with unique resources and needs that could be satisfied by the increased use of AUVs. The broad goal of AUVAC is to facilitate the sharing of resources and information in order to advance the development and rapid implementation of AUV applications. It will provide the capability to Educate, Inform and Train, to Operate, Maintain and Manage, to Develop and Integrate and to Test and Evaluate AUV system and subsystem technology by building on its members' capabilities and its core group of technologists. (View Graph A)

AUVAC operates, manages, and maintains operational autonomous undersea systems that support scientific research programs, applied development and application activities in support of the international ocean community, and requests from its sponsor organizations for specific applications.

AUVAC is a "virtual" enterprise that exploits the advantages of today's telecommunication infrastructure and information management technology. The Center will bring together the resources to provide the national and international ocean community with a range and depth of capabilities not available, nor cost effective, from a single source. Its structure will remain flexible with the ability to provide only the services required by the community and capable of remaining on the leading edge of technology. AUVAC will be able to accomplish this through its center members/associates and their relationships with other synergistic partners. It will also provide greater reach by acting as a technology and operational repository that is international in scope and dedicated to the single theme of AUV system and subsystem research, development, and operations.