- The sea trials of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) designed and developed by the Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI), Durgapur — a constituent establishment of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) — are slated to begin off the Chennai coast during the last week of January.
- The 'AUV-150,' as the prototype is named, is built to operate 150 metres under the sea. It was developed in technical collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur.
- The project is sponsored by the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
- During the sea trials, the AUV's image processing capability would be assessed.
- Besides, its capacity to model environmental parameters such as temperature gradient, current, depth and salinity gradient would be scrutinised. Once the technology is proven through extensive sea trials, the AUV can be customised for applications like close-to-coast undersea monitoring, mine countermeasures, cable and pipeline surveys, besides a host of oceanographic studies
Features
The AUV has hybrid communication channels. It uses radio frequency while on surface, but switches to acoustic communication when submerged. The AUV has its own power, propulsion, navigation and control systems. For movement underwater, it locates own geographical position using navigational sensors, while its forward-looking sonar facilitates obstacle evasion and safe passage. For effective operation, it is equipped with navigational sensors like the inertial navigation system, depth sonar, altimeter etc., and payload sensors like camera, side scan sonar and the like. It has extra roll stability, a cruising speed of up to four knots, and weighs about 490 kg
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