Autonomous Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV): A Paradigm Shift for Harbor Security and Underwater Bathymetric Imaging

With the continuing success in the use of unmanned vehicles and aircraft on land and in the air, it is inevitable that the maritime industry would follow their lead both below and on the surface of the water. While underwater UUVs have operated for the last two decades, the surface USV community is only recently beginning to mature into its niche areas of “unmanned maritime opportunity”. This paper focuses on USVs and examines their growth and paradigm shift in both commercial and military missions/tasks within the maritime industry.The paper then shifts its focus to the examination of a specific family of USVs, the MANTAS, that have, over the past five years, gone through the “small-prototype to larger-production USV” evolution based on specific real-world customer requirements and missions.The paper then focuses specifically on the effective use of USVs in areas of (1)Harbor Security and (2) Underwater Structure/Dam Bathymetric Imaging. In the detailed examination of both mission scenarios, the paper examines the use of both above-water cameras and below-water echosounders/sonars.Unmanned Surface Vehicle, in their unmanned and autonomous configuration are proving they can take the man out of the loop to get them out of harm's way or minimize the manpower efforts required by safely enhancing their capabilities. The paradigm shift that has already been seen in the UAV world is now beginning to be realized with USVs.