Description : | NIO has indigenously designed and developed a small Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV), for operations up to a depth of 200 meters. It has a weight of 54 kilograms, length of 1.7 meters and hull diameter 0.23 meters and uses a single underwater thruster to propel itself in water. The vehicle has two stern planes and two rudders to control diving and heading maneuvers respectively. The nose section is swappable and can accommodate mission specific sensors. The science payloads that have been used include a miniature conductivity temperature graph (CTD) sensor, dissolved oxygen sensor (optical), hyper spectral radiometers to measure light conditions underwater, in-situ chlorophyll and turbidity sensors. The AUV can receive commands from the shore over a high-speed radio link. Data download from the AUV is done over the same link. Underwater navigation is achieved with the help of a Doppler Velocity Log (DVL) to measure speed and a navigation filter that estimates its position below sea surface. Surface navigation is based on GPS (Global Positioning System). The AUV gets its energy for the propulsion and electronics from two banks of lithium polymer batteries. The technology is suitable for environmental/ climate change studies as it can collect
standard oceanographic data in confined areas; it can be used as a
platform for testing new marine sensor technologies. |
