Vanguard Magazine

24 OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2016 www.vanguardcanada.com AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES A to provide the Navy with mine hunting and underwater domain awareness. Granted, the proposed funding for the project is only $20 million to $49 million (a mere drop in the bucket compared to the estimated $2.8 billion for the AOPS and $40 billion plus for the CSC), but there are some that believe crewed sub- marines will one day be replaced by un- derwater drones. For instance, United States Deputy Defence Secretary Robert Work has on several occasions discussed how AUVs could help cut the cost of operating and maintaining submarines. Submarines have been a staple for navies when it comes to discretely observing enemies at sea and launching missiles and torpedoes. Today, to a certain extent, those tasks can be accomplished more cheaply by smaller AUVs. It would also cost much cheaper to build a fleet of AUVs than it would a lesser number of manned submarines. AUVs have the added advantage of keeping humans out of harm's way as they go about their tasks in perilous situa- tions and environments, according to Rick Gerbrecht, director of Atlas Elektronik Canada. The Victoria, B.C.-based com- pany is positioning its AUVs for the Navy's Remote Mine Hunting and Disposal pro- gram. "AUVs are ideal for performing what we call the 3Ds – dull, dirty and dangerous work that you would hesitate to hand over to a person," he said. "What's more, with the advancement in sensor and navigation technology AUVs can now accomplish much more than they could a decade ago." The first AUV was developed by Stan Murphy, Bob Francis and Terry Ewart back in 1957 at the University of Wash- ington. Their Special Purpose Underwa- ter Research Vehicle (SPURV) was used to study diffusion, acoustic transmission and submarine wakes. Until relatively recently, AUVs were used for a limited number of tasks, dictat- ed by the available technologies. Advance- ment in sensor technology, data process- ing and transmission, global positioning systems and propulsion has paved the way for a wider scope of applications. Today, AUVs are deployed by oil and gas companies to map seafloor beds as well as inspect pipelines and oil rigs. Re- searchers use AUVs to study underwater marine life and environments. AUVs have been used to search for crashed aircraft and sunken vessels. Outfitted with GPS, UNDERWATER DRONES Critical naval roles seen for Atlas Elektronik proposes multi-purpose autonomous underwater vehicles for sub-surface mapping, mine detection by Nestor Arellano W hen it comes to naval procurement, the Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS) program and Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) program are the headline-grabbing, big-ticket items. But literally swimming under the water is a program that could be linked to the future the Royal Canadian Navy's underwater warfare capability. The Royal Canadian Navy is poised to release a Request for Proposal for its proposed Remote Mine Hunting and Disposal project. The project aims to le- verage proven off-the-shelf autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV ) technology U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Corey Green

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