Development of prototype autonomous surface vehicle

JAMSTEC has operated autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for scientific survey of seabed mineral resources. Conventionally, the number of AUVs the support vessel can track is limited to one during operations. However, it takes a long time for one AUV to survey a large target area. To solve this problem, an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) has been developed. The ASV, instead of the support vessel autonomously tracks AUV and monitors its progress, enabling the simultaneous operation of multiple AUVs and thereby the survey of a larger target area within a given period of time.