NIUST AUVs - Expanding possibilities

The National Institute of Undersea Science and Technology (NIUST)'s Underwater Vehicle Technology Center (UVTC) expanded their operational capabilities by acquiring a SeaBED class AUV in early 2009. This vehicle dubbed, Mola Mola after the Ocean Sunfish, is a superb addition to the UVTC, as it adds photographic capabilities at very slow moving speeds to the centers repertoire. The vehicle is designed to fly at speeds of 0.2 ms⁻¹ about 3m above the seafloor, snapping high resolution digital images of the seafloor at preset intervals of 4 to 5 seconds. Normal mission behavior, programmed prior to launch of the vehicle, is to cover a certain area on the seafloor in a lawn mowing track, with parallel lines covering the entire area. At the end of the mission, geo-referenced photo mosaic maps of the target of interest on the sea floor are computed. The vehicle was deployed for several missions on the NASA vessel Liberty Star in the Bahamas. High resolution imagery of the bottom fauna and flora from depths too deep for deep divers to reach, provided insight into the distribution of Lion Fish in the coral reefs of the Bahamas. At the end of the field season engineering efforts were started to reorganize and replace certain hardware components to allow for improved navigation and data handling within the vehicles software architecture. They vehicle itself has since been modified from its original design, adding guided inertial navigation and improvements in its image acquisition process. Changes further include obstacle avoidance, GPS positioning and addition of a VHF radio beacon.