AUV for Sustained Riverine and Littoral Assessments

The current proposal addresses the design and fabrication of a rapidly deployable, autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) suitable for operation within littorals and riverine environments. The proposed platform brings together current state of the art technologies in the areas of doppler sonar, power generation, on-board navigation and system optimization. These technologies will be evaluated, collectively modeled and optimized in the Phase I effort to establish a comprehensive prototype design. The overall objectives for the design will be based on Navy requirements and the specific mission and power draw projected for on-board systems over the proposed mission duration. Initial assessment of the requirements indicate that in order to achieve the duration and projected power draw to achieve a robust navigation solution within the GPS denied environment, an additional power generation solution must be employed. The proposed platform incorporates a hydrokinematic power generation technique to periodically recharge the power supply. Power management and navigation will be managed through an intelligent on-board processor that will be used to optimize the various system parameters to achieve the desired mission objectives.