Submaran Advantages Application Note: Ocean Current Survey ADCP Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers or ADCP’s are often used to measure ocean currents in specific areas like shipping channels, around oil & gas facilities and marine mammal migration routes. ADCP’s are generally deployed by fixing them to the bottom of manned vessels or attached to buoys that are fixed in place. The former is operationally expensive while the latter limits measurement to a small sample area. Recent advances in ADCP technology have producednits that are smaller and more powerful. The new devices lend themselves well to installation on small u, long-range unmanned vessels such as the Submaran. These unmanned vessels or “gliders” allow much lower cost of operation and much higher flexibility with regard to location and area coverage. A wide range of data can be gathered by combining the ADCP with additional sensor systems. Wave motion/height, water temperatures, salinity and other oceanographic and meteorological data can be simultaneously transmitted via advanced line of sight and satellite communications. Because of their very low speed of operation, less than 2 knots in many cases, gliders have proven only marginally effective in many ADCP operations. The higher current speeds can cause them to drift and require additional algorithmic correction when analyzing survey data. In addition, many gliders have limited power available for ADCP operation requiring manual intervention to re-charge and re-purpose the gliders. Finally, adverse weather conditions limit the window of operations of surface gliders. Application Note: Ocean Current Survey Submaran Advantages Surface Higher speed of operation: The Submaran can operate at speeds between 4 & 6 knots overcoming the current flow that can limit other gliders. Wind and Solar power: Scavenging power at sea allows for very long operational timeframes while providing plenty of sensor power. Submersible operations: The ability to submerge and operate allows Submaran the ability to avoid adverse weather. ADCP 165 feet
Submaran Advantages Application Note: Marine Protected Areas Concern about the health and habits of the marine universe extends across commercial, scientific and government sectors. Because of their importance to the ocean ecosystem, marine protected areas are being established around the world in order to mitigate the damage done by years of inaction. The Submaran provides an excellent, non-obtrusive and highly mobile platform for documenting activities in marine protected habitats and other sensitive EEZ areas. Monitoring of marine protected areas and identification of intruders is accomplished by equipping the Submaran with sensitive hydrophones tuned to "listen" at specific frequencies. On board computers apply algorithms that filter out various noise and make accurate identifications. Advanced third party software is also able to differentiate between threats. Tracking information is then communicated via Iridium satellite link to a base station accessible via internet. The system can be programmed to communicate at specific intervals or trigged by activity level changes or both. Additionally, the Submaran can also be equipped with camera systems to provide visual confirmations. With the Submaran, additional sensor data can be combined with tracking data. Collecting information from salinity and temperature monitoring systems, providing exact GPS locations and filtering data to facilitate efficient communications of critical files. Because of it’s ability to submerge and avoid harsh weather, the Submaran can remain on location monitoring activity for long periods of time even in the worst conditions. Once the weather clears, the Submaran can surface and up-load stored data. Application Note: Marine Protected Areas Submaran Advantages M Higher speed of operation: Because of it’s ability to travel at 2 to 4 times the speed, the Submaran can cover a large footprint and track a greater number of marine mammals than other gliders. Wind and Solar power: Scavenging power at sea allows for very long operational timeframes while hosting a variety of communications systems. Submersible operations: The ability to submerge and operate allows Submaran the ability to avoid adverse weather and continue to gather data. 200 Hydrophones 400 600 800 1000
Submaran Advantages Application Note: Marine Mammal Tracking Concern about the health and habits of the marine mammal universe extends across commercial, scientific and government sectors. Because of their importance to the ocean ecosystem, whales and other marine mammals are actively sought out and tracked around the world. The Submaran provides an excellent, non-obtrusive and highly mobile platform for documenting marine mammal habits and patterns. Marine mammal location and identification is accomplished by equipping the Submaran with sensitive hydrophones tuned to "listen" at specific frequencies. On board computers apply algorithms that filter out various noise and make accurate identifications. Advanced third party software is also be able to differentiate between species. Tracking information is then communicated via Iridium satellite link to a base station accessible via internet. The system can be programmed to communicate at specific intervals or trigged by activity level changes or both. Additionally, the Submaran can also be equipped with camera systems to provide visual confirmations. With the Submaran, additional sensor data can be combined with tracking data. Collecting information from salinity and temperature monitoring systems, providing exact GPS locations and filtering data to facilitate efficient communications of critical files. Because of it’s ability to submerge and avoid harsh weather, the Submaran can remain on location and gather data for long periods of time even in the worst conditions. Once the weather clears, the Submaran can surface and up-load stored data. Application Note: Marine Mammal Tracking Submaran Advantages M Higher speed of operation: Because of it’s ability to travel at 2 to 4 times the speed, the Submaran can cover a large footprint and track a greater number of marine mammals than other gliders. Wind and Solar power: Scavenging power at sea allows for very long operational timeframes while hosting a variety of communications systems. Submersible operations: The ability to submerge and operate allows Submaran the ability to avoid adverse weather and continue to gather data. 200 Hydrophones 400 600 800 1000
Submaran Advantages Application Note: Gateway Communications Gathering information from instruments and vehicles that operate on or near the sea floor can be a time consuming and costly endeavor. Although acoustic under water modems allow for transmission from depth to the ocean surface, receiving, recording and re-transmitting the data often involves manned platforms. The Submaran provides gateway communications options that can be deployed more frequently at a fraction of the cost. The Submaran utilizes acoustic transceiver technology to communicate with deep sea systems and accumulate the data on an on-going basis. The Submaran can store vast amounts of accumulated data and utilize satellite communication to upload information on a regular schedule allowing for immediate and consistent delivery of time sensitive data collected at the sea floor. With the Submaran, various applications become widely deployable and affordable. Collecting information from pressure and temperature monitoring systems, providing exact locations from GPS for precise location of sea floor systems and collecting data from other unmanned underwater vehicles that would otherwise have to surface to communicate or be recovered for downloads. Because of it’s mobility, the Submaran can be used to collect data from large numbers of embedded sea floor and/or underwater vessel systems. Because of it’s ability to submerge and avoid harsh weather, the Submaran can remain on location and gather data for long periods of time even in the worst conditions. Once the weather clears, the Submaran can surface and up-load stored data. Application Note: Gateway Communications Submaran Advantages Higher speed of operation: Because of it’s ability to travel at 2 to 4 times the speed, the Submaran can cover a large footprint and service a larger number of undersea systems than other gliders. Wind and Solar power: Scavenging power at sea allows for very long operational timeframes while hosting a variety of communications systems. Submersible operations: The ability to submerge and operate allows Submaran the ability to avoid adverse weather and continue to gather data.
Submaran Advantages Application Note: Surface/Sub-surface Operations The Submaran UUSV is uniquely designed as a hybrid underwater and surface unmanned system. The ability to operate on the surface as a wind and solar powered glider and convert to a hydrodynamic underwater vehicle will add a new dimension to group interoperability. The ability to deploy the same vessel configuration for operation from the surface down to 200 meters using compatible command, control and communications greatly simplifies the task of operating in groups over wide swaths of open ocean. There is a clear benefit for operators to be able to seamlessly command, control, exploit and share sensor information from unmanned systems operating in both surface and sub-surface domains. Since the Submaran is two vessels in one, there are fewer disparate systems to be concerned with when operating in surface/sub-surface group configurations. Each Submaran will run the same operating system, communications suite and be, characteristically, the same. With Submarans working in groups, operators can take advantage of the ability to “swap” vessels between surface gateway and sub-surface monitoring posts allowing each vessel time to re-charge via solar panel. This will greatly extend the operating duration and range of the group as a whole. Additionally, if more vessels are needed above or below, the command to re-purpose can readily be passed from a primary gateway vessel to other vessels both above and below the surface. Although it is recognized that the Submaran must be capable of communication with unmanned systems from other vendors, the advantages of a single system operating in surface/sub-surface groups will simplify operational requirements for deployment, control, sensor compatibility and maintenance. Application Note: Surface/Sub-surface Operations Submaran Advantages Compatible Control: Because it is one system operating effectively as two there is no problem with cross compatibility or disparate operations. Group Mission Duration: Scavenging power at sea allows for very long operational timeframes. The ability to “swap” functions between vessels allows for each to operate a adequate power levels. Hybrid Operations: One surface/sub-surface vessel system will reduce operational concerns and reduce long-term maintenance, training and handling costs. 200 Meters
Massive Storage, Easy Access Over the past several years, many have chosen to deploy unmanned maritime systems because of the obvious advantages of lower cost and keeping people out of harm’s way. While the use of AUV’s and other unmanned systems can cut operational costs for many applications by as much as 60 – 80%, the capital and operational costs of training operators, data acquisition infrastructure and maintenance can be prohibitive. To meet the market needs and relieve users from these capital and overhead costs, the industry has begun to move toward offering operational services. Ocean Aero believes that this operational service model is poised for rapid growth and is developing its own Robot as a Service (RaaS) model that will leverage the performance of our Submaran UUSV. The RaaS product set is designed to contain a range of services that customers can take advantage of for planning, out-fitting, monitoring and acquiring mission data that they can access in real or near real-time using their existing systems and Internet connectivity. Ocean Aero RaaS services include: Requirements Documentation, Mission Planning, Sensor Suite Definition, Systems Integration Plans and Platform Preparations. Once the Submaran is mission ready and launched, the RaaS service will be triggered and data will be delivered to the Ocean Aero cloud infrastructure where customers can preview data sets and easily view or download relevant data files. Minimum RaaS terms of 15 days up to long term services packages of as much as a year are offered. RaaS charges will include operations, maintenance, sparing, and standard communications configurations. Additional service charges may include; advanced sensor configurations and launch and recovery services. Application Note: Robot as a Service Standard Customer Requirements Mission Planning Sensor Suite Definition MP/SSD Integration Plan Platform Preparation No Yes Cloud Based Data Storage and Access System Massive Storage, Easy Access Advanced Data Gathering: Submaran systems integrate multiple sensors and locally store data for immediate access. Scalable Solution: Submaran Data is uploaded to the global platform designed specifically for ocean data. Cloud Access: Presents a rich abstract of big data in a useful object that can be viewed anywhere.