Multiple Acoustic Sensor Technology (MAST) System for AUVs

RD Instruments has several acoustic sensor technologies which are on the threshold of achieving the affordability, low-power, robustness, and miniaturization needed for autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) applications. We manufacture Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs), Doppler Velcoity Logs (DVLs), and Correlation Velocity Logs (CVLs). We are also developing a phased array sonar in which the multiple transmit and receive beams required by the ADCP are formed by a single aperture using electronic beamforming. These technologies can be combined to provide a Multiple Acoustic Sensor Technology (MAST) System suitable for use on a small diameter AUV. The quantities which can be measured include altitude, current profiles, water turbulence, bottom track Doppler navigation, multi-beam bottom bathymetry, and volume backscatter intensity measurement which includes applications such as fish and zooplankton biomass and particulate concentration. Water turbulence can be measured in several ways using either Doppler or correlation techniques. We have also recently demonstrated the ability to determine ocean wave directional spectra from upward looking ADCP beams, and we are in investigating the feasibility of measuring temperature profiles by accoustics techniques. Thus, there is a great potential available for making a wide variety of interesting oceanographic measurements from a flexible acoustic sensor on an AUV.