TURTLE - a robotic autonomous deep sea lander

This paper presents a new concept for a deep sea lander system combining both sea bottom permanence characteristics with autonomous repositioning functionalities and efficient ascent/descent motion in the water column. The TURTLE hybrid lander is a particular type of autonomous underwater vehicle designed to act as sea bottom fixed observation node or in operations of transport equipment to the deep sea. The paper discusses the general concept of operation and applications and also presents the developed prototype. This system was developed under a dual use EDA (European Defense Agency) project and with national and European funds. Considered as one of the dual use (civil and military) success stories, the demonstrator was equipped to sensors allowing both seismographic data gathering and acoustic monitoring applications.