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66 Insight | UUVs the TReX (Tracer Release eXperiment) programme. This saw four days and 15 deployments of the 8 kg UUV into the Gulf of St Lawrence by Seaber’s technicians and researchers from the University of Dalhousie, in Canada. “Dalhousie wanted to model how particles would move through waters, using clouds of rhodamine and other dyes as stand-ins for harmful chemical spills,” says Luc Simon, global business development manager at Seaber. “They were then tracked by interoperable vehicle platforms, some slowly moving, some fixed on the surface, and others moving and navigating within the cloud. “The university’s interest in micro-AUVs was the spatially repeatable nature of operations. We programmed the AUV with various waypoints many times, ensuring a fair test of the dye cloud’s behaviour. When needed, the Yuco could swim in different patterns to measure different regions of the cloud and how they disperse, either to inform new models or test the ones they were creating.” Simon adds that the researchers’ particular interest in the Yuco was also due to its speed and manoeuvrability in currents, as they were key to capturing a well-rounded image of particle dispersion. It is also designed to integrate with a sonde using a single RS-232 port, minimising the burden of removing or swapping sensors between missions. The Yuco-Physico is also depth-rated to 300 m, can achieve a top speed of 6 knots, and can operate for up to 10 hours between battery recharges. The 100 cm UUV was launched and recovered from a rigid inflatable boat, and was fitted with an AML-3 sonde. This was fitted with sensors for chlorophyll, sound velocity and conductivity/temperature to track the cloud. It also contained all the necessary computer hardware for processing the data, saving the Yuco the burden of having to carry that itself. The XChange technology in AML’s next-generation sondes also means that the sensors are quickly swappable and useable in different combinations, without any calibrations being needed, again reducing the downtime between recovery and relaunch of the UUV. “We anticipate Dalhousie and other universities using micro-AUVs like ours more often in their environmental research,” Simon says. “In the meantime, we’re now considering going further with behavioural autonomy capabilities, which would allow our UUVs to independently follow oceanographic formations, water currents, dye clouds and other points of static or dynamic interest. “The future stages of TReX are aimed at new ways of mitigating oil spills. This kind of UUV behavioural autonomy could be game-changing for operations like those.” Climatological phenomena EvoLogics’ newest biologically inspired UUV, the penguin-like Quadroin, is to assist the Helmholtz Association with the next stages of its Moses initiative, which is aimed at achieving closer understanding of heatwaves, hydrological extremes and ocean eddies. The Quadroin will be used for monitoring the last of these, as eddies can transport anomalously warm or cold waters, influencing the passage of heat throughout ocean ecosystems. “The Quadroin’s integrated sensors for studies of ocean eddies include a fast CTD from Sea & Sun Technology, with an O 2 sensor from PyroScience and a Cyclops-7F fluorometer from Turner Designs,” comments Eugen Olenew, team leader for mechanical engineering at EvoLogics. “During our latest in-house trials, we used a new navigational approach for geo-referenced positioning of a swarm of our unmanned marine systems, including the Quadroin.” As with its predecessor the PingGuin (featured in UST 36, February/March 2021), the Quadroin features a spindle- like hull 1082 mm in length that was inspired by studies of penguins’ swimming forms, and propels itself using four rearward-disposed electric thrusters in an X-shaped arrangement These enable speeds up to 5 m/s (18 kph). Depending on marine conditions and exact use, it has an endurance of at least 4 hours at an average speed of 4 m/s, or more than 30 hours if kept to 1 m/s. February/March 2022 | Unmanned Systems Technology Seaber’s Yuco-Physico AUV has been operated in an experiment aimed at investigating how chemicals spread through ocean waters (Courtesy of Seaber)