Summary, conclusions, and future work

The chapter elaborates on three views on the maritime robotics aspect of AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles). Summaries, conclusions, and recommendations for future work from the authors of the chapters are collected. The conclusion from a (holistic) viewpoint on autonomy is given. AUVs belong to the class of unmanned or automated systems, which are removing or remotely locating the operator. This reduces cost of the operation, reduces the size of the platform, and removes risk of life because the maritime operation is a naturally harsh environment. In this sense, AUVs can be viewed as maritime robots. However, AUVs can be (much!) more. They can interactively adapt to their environment, which is a sign of autonomy. On-board processing power will allow them to adapt with machine speed. Sufficient processing power is a prerequisite for implementing learning algorithms on board the AUVs in order to improve with experience, but to apply this learning advances in the organisation of the learning space are needed.