This paper describes a two week deployment of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Sirius on the Tasman Peninsula in SE Tasmania and in the Huon Marine Protected Area (MPA) to the South West of Hobart. The objective of the deployments described in this work were to document biological assemblages associated with rocky reef systems in shelf waters beyond normal diving depths. At each location...

This paper describes the role of the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Sirius on a research cruise to survey drowned reefs along the shelf edge of the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia. The primary function of the AUV was to provide georeferenced, high-resolution optical validation of seabed interpretations based on acoustic data. We describe the AUV capabilities and its operation i...

This paper proposes a novel motion controller for autonomous underwater vehicle based on parallel neural network. The motion controller consists of a real-time part, a self-learning part and a desired state programming part, and it is different from normal adaptive neural network controller in structure. Owing to the introduction of the self-learning part, on-line learning can be performed with...

This paper describes the development and preliminary experimental evaluation of a visionbased docking system to allow an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) to identify and attach itself to a set of uniquely identifiable targets. These targets, docking poles, are detected using Haar rectangular features and rotation of integral images. A non-holonomic controller allows the Starbug AUV to orient...

We discuss the problem of active inspection of a marine structure by an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The AUV must plan a path of sensing views that estimates the difference between two surfaces: one reconstructed from prior data, and one reconstructed online during inspection. We propose modeling the structure’s surface using non-parametric Bayesian regression, which allows for a number...

This paper describes field experiments with an X8 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operating as a wireless communication relay while loitering over a REMUS 100 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) being at the ocean surface. The paper describes the design of the communication relay payload, network configuration, optimal flight conditions and UAV antenna mounting, and experimental results. Experime...

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) have been established as a viable tool for Oceanographic Sciences. Being untethered and independent, AUVs fill the gap in Ocean Exploration left by the existing manned submersible and remotely operated vehicles (ROV) technology. AUVs are attractive as cheaper and efficient alternatives to the older technologies and are breaking new ground in many applicatio...

We assessed telemetry of transmittertagged fishes from an autonomous underwater vehicle with an attached hydrophone/datalogger that procesed code-division-multiple-access acoustic signals. Geolocation estimates used synthetic aperture and relative sound strength mapping. Transmitters could be detected at all angles relative to the AUV heading and as far as 2 km distant. Signal reception pattern...