Design of a Flying Node AUV for Ocean Bottom Seismic Observations

Ocean bottom node (OBN) systems are common exploration methods for deep water seismic observation. However, seismic detection nodes in existing OBN systems were usually placed or recovered individually using a ROV, thus there was inefficiency as to the deployment and recovery of seismic survey. To overcome the limitations of OBN, this paper develops a Ocean Bottom Flying Node (OBFN) that combines OBN and AUV techniques. The proposed OBFN retains all the advantages of OBN systems, while at the same time can provide dramatic time and cost savings for ocean bottom seismic operations. In addition, by extension of traditional single beacon tracking system for a single underwater agent, navigation of OBFN swarms is achieved. Numerical simulations are carried out to verify the feasibility of the single beacon localization system.