NMF: USL pages

National Marine Facilities - USL

The USL platforms group

Autosub6000.


Autosub being recovered
Following its first successful trials in 2007 (News1) , Autosub6000 has undergone significant development. In the summer of 2008 it undertook its first science missions, surveying deep sea scour features on the deep western European Margin with its recently fitted multibeam sonar (News2) , also Geohab Poster (Veerle Huvenne).

In October of 2009, the AUV completed successful trials to an operating depth of 5600 m, and tested a new obstacle avoidance system, based on a scanning sonar, over the rugged terrain of the Casablanca seamount. (News3) .

Further technical details and a vehicle specification and ships interface can be found at: Autosub6000 Specification, and enquiries regarding use of the vehicle or additional technical details are welcome and should be addressed to the project leader, Stephen McPhail:  sdm@noc.soton.ac.uk

The Long Range Autosub

Within the NERC Oceans 2025 program we intend to research and develop some completely novel platforms technology, which should have a major impact on ocean science.   One exciting new concept which we are pursuing is an extremely long range, long endurance, AUV, able to cross ocean basins with an endurance of several months. More details of the concept and the technologial issues can be found at: (Long Range Autosub)

We are also interested in answering the question: How can we most economically and effectively make ocean measurements on very large 3D scales and within a synoptic time frame?  - One idea which  we will be researching is the use of aircraft deployed sensors.