68 says Giorgio Poli, product manager at Codevintec. “The moon pool measures 33 by 27 cm, and can host instruments like ADCPs as well as multi-beam, singlebeam and sidescan sonars. “It’s constructed froma resilient carbonKelvar material, which also contributes to the lightness, and is waterproofed by a gasket in the internal cover.” The CK-14 measures 140 cm long, 90 cmwide and 45 cmwith a roll bar installed. The system is powered by a 4S, 16 Ah lithium-polymer battery, with propulsion coming from two fully flooded brushless motors each producing 6.7 kg of thrust; their propellers also provide steering to avoid using a rudder, a potential point of failure. “The USV is ideal for rivers, lakes and coasts, up to sea state 3,” Poli adds. “The data link from GCS to USV can run over a short-range RF link, a 5 kmwi-fi link or LTE if users really want to operate or monitor it from a long distance away. We’re seeing particular interest in it from universities and research organisations, as well as government agencies. “They are also interested in using our Sestante autopilot, which includes our smart controller and a 7 in display through which users can intelligently define a survey area they want to monitor.” At the time of writing, Codevintec was looking for partners to distribute and promote the CK-14 overseas. Dredging surveys We last featured Netherlands-based Demcon Unmanned Systems (DUS) in UST32 (June/July 2020) and its DUS-V USVs, which were being put through their paces as a solution for surveys in harbours and other inland dredging work sites. Since then, Demcon has continued developing and growing its USV product and technology portfolio, and now offers a few other USVs, including its flagship, the V2500. “The first prototype was a 2500 mm vessel – hence the name V2500 – which held all the survey equipment normally packed into an 8 mmanned survey vessel, but since then we have increased its capacity and length over time,” says Fedor Ester, managing director of DUS. “It is now a 3 m vessel, but we kept the V2500 name since almost all the new builds have custom changes, which would have led to many name changes. “This flexibility and modularity gave us more space inside, with a longer moon pool, making it easier to install different kinds of survey equipment. We also now have a double battery configuration that gives us an endurance of over 12 hours, or up to 52 km for surveying.” A fast-charging system can enable the packs to be charged from empty to full in 4 hours, if an end-user wants to carry out additional surveys over a given period. “We’re still working with Van Oord, the same dredging company we mentioned in 2020 [and now DUS’ strategic partner], where their first need was for custom solutions for inland waters,” Ester says. “After extending their V2500 fleet and gaining experience and confidence in the deployments, they broadened the deployments towards more near-shore operations. “We were unsure about how the systemwould handle this different environment, in terms of the higher waves it would need to endure. To identify risks and validate performance, we first simulated the small V2500 design in our seakeeping, stability and flow simulation engine. “We also validated payload sensor data performance through CFD modelling to June/July 2023 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Insight | USVs Demcon’s V2500 USV is now being used in near-shore operations as well as harbours, where it originally specialised in dredgingrelated surveys (Courtesy of Demcon)
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