Community News for March, 2009

Bluefin Robotics and Global Marine Systems announce Commercial AUV Partnership for UK Market

March 31, 2009 — via Bluefin Robotics

Cambridge, MA, USA—March 31, 2009— Bluefin Robotics Corporation a leading Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) manufacturer, has announced an exclusive UK distribution agreement with Global Marine Systems, an independent marine engineering company. Under the agreement Global Marine Systems will sell and service Bluefin AUVs as well as train and certify personnel for operation. The agreement highlights the emergence of AUVs as a cost effective and capable tool for use in all types of subsea engineering projects.

Autosub 6000 - the UK's deepest diving submarine robot

March 30, 2009 — via Planet Earth Online

Able to dive to a depth of 6000 metres, Autosub 6000 allows scientists to access more than 90 per cent of the Earth's ocean floors. Science writer and broadcaster Richard Hollingham finds out more about what's in store for this robot submarine.

HUGIN AUV used in search for Amundsen's airplane

March 28, 2009 — via Hydrography and Hydrographic Survey

When the royal Norwegian Navy in August starts its search for Roald Amundsen's airplane Latham, which disappeared in the Barents Sea in 1928, the HUGIN 1000 MR autonomous underwater vehicle will play a vital role.

Hafmynd Ehf announces the creation of a new Gavia AUV line: The Gavia Offshore

March 27, 2009 — via Hafmynd Ehf

Drawing on the experiences from numerous trials and operations in the commercial offshore sector with Gavia AUVs, Hafmynd Ehf of Reykjavik Iceland announces a new line: The Gavia Offshore Surveyor which is specifically geared to commercial application of low logistics AUVs.

Hafmynd announces first sales of Gavia AUVs for Commercial Oil and Gas

March 27, 2009 — via Hafmynd Ehf

Hafmynd announces the recent sale to NCS Survey of Aberdeen of two Gavia systems for commercial Oil and Gas applications. The two systems are of the Gavia Offshore Surveyor line which are Gavia systems optimized for the commercial survey applications. They are equipped with SeeByte's AutoTrack capability, which will allow the system to actively track pipelines with input from the onboard Marine Sonics side scan sonar, a GeoSwath swath bathymetry system from GeoAcoustics, and a camera system. One of the systems is 500m rated while the other is 1000m rated with the only differences in the two systems being the aluminum blend used in the machining and
extended depth rating transducers so that both systems are the same size and roughly the same weight (around 2.7m and 80Kg).

Sea Otter for Mapantsula?

March 25, 2009 — via Defence Web

Project Mapantsula reflects a new approach to naval mine warfare, says Thomas Kunze, international business development manager at Atlas Elektronik. It will allow the South African Navy (SAN) to remove the man from the minefield. Mapantsula will provide the SAN a modular minehunting system that will free it from reliance on a dedicated class of vessels. The SAN is keen to retire its 1980s vintage River-class minehunters and has already phased out its minesweepers.

Nature’s Motion Detectors: Researchers Develop Flow Sensors Based on Hair Structures of Blind Cavefish

March 24, 2009 — via Georgia Tech News

a blind cave fish’s body shows a row of stained cupula. The fish use these gel-covered hairs to detect obstacles, avoid predators and localize prey.

Although members of the fish species Astyanax fasciatus cannot see, they sense their environment and the movement of water around them with gel-covered hairs that extend from their bodies. Their ability to detect underwater objects and navigate through their lightless environment inspired a group of researchers to mimic the hairs of these blind cavefish in the laboratory.

AUVSI Program Review Feb 2009

March 23, 2009 — via Unmanned Systems March 2009

A record crowd attended AUVSI's Unmanned Systems Program Review 2009 on Feb. 3-5, where attendees heard top U.S. military service and civilian science officials say what they need for the future: More power, better communications and more common controls. maritime systems.

Teledyne Wins $6.2M ($52.6M with Options) U.S. Navy Glider Contract

March 23, 2009 — via Business Wire News

Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:TDY) announced today that its subsidiary, Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc. (TBE), of Huntsville, Ala., has been awarded a contract to design, engineer, build, test and deliver ocean Littoral Battlespace Sensing-Gliders (LBS-G), as well as associated support equipment.

YSI Environmental announces multiple EcoMapper AUV orders

March 21, 2009 — via Hydrography and Hydrographic Survey

The U.S. Geological Survey Illinois Water Science Center has purchased the first EcoMapper water quality AUV from YSI Incorporated's Integrated Systems & Services Division. The USGS is working with a nuclear power station to monitor the water temperature of the station's man-made 5,000-acre cooling reservoir. Under EPA NPDES guidelines, the station must monitor its waste heat discharge to stay within specified temperature guidelines.

Robot octopus will go where no sub has gone before

March 21, 2009 — via new scientist

INVEST €10 million in a robotic octopus and you will be able to search the seabed with the same dexterity as the real eight-legged cephalopod. At least that's the plan, say those who are attempting to build a robot with arms that work in the same way that octopuses tentacles do. Having no solid skeleton, it will be the world's first entirely soft robot.

A New Deep-Sea Robot Called Sentry

March 20, 2009 — via Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Oceanus

Autonomous underwater vehicle completes its first scientific mission

There’s been a changing of the guard among deep-sea exploration vehicles.

Sentry, a new undersea robot built by engineers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), completed its first scientific mission last summer, scouting out sites for an undersea observatory network off the coast of Washington state. Sentry is the successor to ABE, the Autonomous Benthic Explorer, a pioneering free-swimming robot, launched in 1995, which revolutionized deep-sea exploration by expanding scientists’ reach into the deep.

Robotic fish to act as water pollution police

March 20, 2009 — via Giz Mag

A number of robotic fish are to be trialled into the port of Gijon in Spain to evaluate how effectively and cost-efficiently they can detect water pollution. The 1.5 meter carp-shaped robots are part of a three-year research project funded by the European Commission and if successful, the fish could be used in rivers, lakes and seas across the world. The life-like creatures, which will mimic the undulating movement of real fish, will be equipped with tiny chemical sensors to find the source of potentially hazardous pollutants in the water, such as leaks from vessels in the port or underwater pipelines.

Robot sub journeys 30km under Antarctic glacier

March 19, 2009 — via Electronics Weekly

An autonomous submarine from the UK's National Oceanography Centre has broken yet another record."Nobody has done anything like this before - only us in 2005," team leader Steve McPhail told Electronics Weekly.The vehicle, Autosub3, is an underwater autonomous vehicle (UAV) built and developed at the Centre in Southampton.On its own, the 7m long sub penetrated 30km under the Pine Island Glacier, a floating extension of the West Antarctic ice sheet.

Navy maps harbor, channel

March 18, 2009 — via Corpus Christie Caller Times

Underwater vehicles floated Wednesday along the Corpus Christi Ship Channel and Inner Harbor just below the water’s surface, mapping the floor. The three-dimensional images captured will serve several purposes, including port protection.
The exercise was conducted by the Navy in collaboration with the Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security and Port of Corpus Christi.

K2 Energy Solutions Tapped by U.S. Army to Develop New Rechargeable Lithium Battery for Military Applications

March 18, 2009 — via K2 Energy Solutions, Inc.

K2 Energy Solutions, a manufacturer of rechargeable battery systems for electric vehicles and energy storage applications, has been awarded a $119,000 contract by the U.S. Army's Communications-Electronics Research, Development, and Engineering Center (CERDEC) at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.The contract was awarded under the Army's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and calls for the development of an improved, ultra-safe BB-2590 rechargeable battery, a high-power lithium ion battery for military applications.

Unique Glider Studies Whales, Ocean Glider Runs On Solar, Ocean Energy

March 18, 2009 — via AUVSI Unmanned Science Newsletter 2009 Issue 6

In the burgeoning scientific effort to understand non-human intelligence, researchers in California continue to use an unmanned ocean glider to eavesdrop on the acoustic communications among blue whales.

Improved Batteries To Power UGVs, Hybrid Autos

March 18, 2009 — via AUVSI Unmanned Science Newsletter 2009 Issue 6

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology say they’ve found a way to speed the way lithium ions within a battery, making strides to overcome the power challenge in the field of robotics and unmanned vehicle systems.

UK robot sub searches for signs of melting 60 km into an Antarctic ice shelf cavity

March 17, 2009 — via National Oceanography Centre, Southampton

Autosub has been exploring Pine Island Glacier, a floating extension of the West Antarctic ice sheet, using sonar scanners to map the seabed and the underside of the ice as it juts into the sea. Scientists hope to learn why the glacier has been thinning and accelerating over recent decades. Pine Island Glacier is in the Amundsen Sea, part of the South Pacific bordering West Antarctica.

Robot sub in Antarctica finds clues to rising seas

March 17, 2009 — via Reuters

A robot submarine has found clues to rising world sea levels by making trips deep beneath an ice shelf in Antarctica, scientists said on Tuesday. The 7-meter (22-ft) submarine was making the first inspection of the underside of the shelf off the Pine Island glacier, in a U.S.-British mission.

Robot Sub Maps Melting Rate Of Antarctic Glaciers

March 17, 2009 — via Red Orbit

A robot submarine studying the underbelly of an Antarctic ice shelf has found evidence of rising sea levels, scientists reported on Tuesday.Developed by UK’s National Oceanography Center of Southampton, Autosub is an Automated Underwater Vehicle (AUV). It has completed six missions traveling under Pine Island Glacier, an extension of the West Antarctic ice sheet in the Amundsen Sea.

Robot submarine searches for signs of melting under Antarctic Ice Shelf

March 17, 2009 — via National Oceanography Centre, Southampton Press Office

A team of British and American scientists has successfully deployed an autonomous robot submarine on six missions beneath an Antarctic glacier using sonar scanners to map the seabed and the underside of the ice where it juts into the sea.The research is part of an international collaboration to study the dynamic Pine Island Glacier and to understand how changes in ocean temperatures or currents could affect the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Utilizing Ocean Thermal Energy in a Submarine Robot

March 13, 2009 — via NASA Tech Briefs

A proposed system would exploit the ocean thermal gradient for recharging the batteries in a battery-powered unmanned underwater vehicle [UUV (essentially, a small exploratory submarine robot)] of a type that has been deployed in large numbers in research pertaining to global warming. A UUV of this type travels between the ocean surface and depths, measuring temperature and salinity. The proposed system is related to, but not the same as, previously reported ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) systems that exploit the ocean thermal gradient but consist of stationary apparatuses that span large depth ranges.

Alternative OTEC Scheme for a Submarine Robot

March 13, 2009 — via Nasa Tech Briefs

A proposed system for exploiting the ocean thermal gradient to generate power would be based on the thawing-expansion/ freezing-contraction behavior of a wax or perhaps another suitable phase-change material. The power generated by this system would be used to recharge the batteries in a battery-powered unmanned underwater vehicle [UUV (essentially, a small exploratory submarine robot)] of a type that has been deployed in large numbers in research pertaining to global warming. A UUV of this type travels between the ocean surface and various depths, measuring temperature and salinity.

Kratos Awarded $11 Million Prime Contract to Support Anti-Submarine Warfare Training Program

March 12, 2009 — via Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc.

Kratos announced the award of a five year support contract to provide operational lifecycle support, including engineering, technical and logistics, for the MK 30 target and its associated test, handling and launch equipment.

Teledyne Brown wins littoral battlespace sensing UUV glider contract

March 5, 2009 — via Shepard

Teledyne Brown Engineering, Huntsville, Ala., is being awarded a $6,178,103 cost plus incentive fee contract to design, engineer, build, test, and deliver ocean Littoral Battlespace Sensing-Gliders (LBS-G) as well as associated support equipment as part of the Littoral Battlespace Sensing, Fusion, and Integration (LBSF&I) program. LBS-G will provide a low-observable, highly persistent ability to characterize ocean volume properties that influence sound propagation and acoustic weapon and sensor performance predictions within an area of interest.

Call for Papers UUST09 16th International Symposium on Unmanned Untethered Submersible Technology

March 2, 2009 — via AUSI

August 23rd – 26th, 2009
New England Center
University of New Hampshire
Durham, New Hampshire

The Autonomous Undersea Systems Institute (AUSI) is sponsoring the 16th International Symposium on Unmanned Untethered Submersible Technology (UUST09). The Symposium will be held August 23-26, 2009 at the New England Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, New Hampshire.

Abstracts: Abstracts should be from 500-1000 words and must include the author’s name, organizational affiliation, address and email address. The abstract should reflect the technical issues to be discussed and/or methods used for analyzing those issues. The abstract title and authors(s) names, addresses and email should be set apart from the abstract.

Abstract Deadline: March 2nd, 2009