"Marine Bird", a new experimental AUV - results of docking and electric power supply tests in sea trials

"Marine Bird" is an experimental autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that can dock with an underwater base to charge batteries. In October 2003, we carried out the second sea trials off Wakayama Prefecture, Japan and succeeded for the first time in autonomous docking and power supply from an underwater station (a dummy base) to the vehicle under the real environment. This paper describes the outline and the results of the sea trials as well as the overview of the Marine Bird