Autonomous underwater vehicles are increasingly being employed to explore our oceans in applications ranging from defence to industry and science. The Australian Centre for Field Robotics has been deploying AUVs for the last 15 years, with a focus on hover-capable platforms capable of high-resolution seafloor imaging for supplying images of reefs to marine scientists around Australia. Other partnerships have included archaeology and defence. The last six years have seen the Centre move from modifying AUVs designed and built elsewhere to designing and manufacturing our own AUVs to fill a gap in the market for our use cases, with the second generation of these entering open water deployments this year.
This presentation covered the uses of hover-capable AUVs capable of operating in open water, and the design, manufacturing, and field trials of the first two generations of in-house AUVs, including lessons learned between the two generations and for future designs.
