REMUS: a small, low cost AUV; system description, field trials and performance results

Abstract

A new generation of autonomous underwater vehicles are being successfully utilized to support a number of scientific and military objectives. Despite their small size and low cost, these new vehicles are versatile, reliable and require only a two person support staff. These features make the vehicles affordable and available for use by a broad segment of the oceanographic community. The vehicle operators must be confident that they can cost effectively use these new tools with a minimum of support staff for missions such as coastal ocean surveys, and pollution identification and source tracking. An effort to design and fabricate a low cost, small, and accessible vehicle resulted in REMUS, Remote Environmental Measuring UnitS. The vehicle is 19 cm in diameter by 134 cm long and weighs 31 kg. It has an operating and control system based on the PC-104 form factor of the IBM-PC which can be connected to a laptop computer for system configuration. With 400 watt-hours of conventional lead acid batteries the vehicle has a useful range of 25 nautical miles at 3 knots, and a top speed of 5 knots. REMUS is capable of navigating itself using a variety of techniques including long and ultra-short baseline acoustic navigation, bottomlock Doppler navigation and GPS reception. The major system design features are described in this paper including the electrical power plant, the vehicle control system, the acoustic navigation system, and the user interface to the vehicle. The mechanical design and system performance are presented along with recent results from field tests of navigating the vehicle around a pair of transponders.