Autonomous Vessels and Underwater Vehicles

Abstract

The design of an autonomous vessel or underwater vehicle requires one additional skill compared to the robot designs discussed previously: watertightness. This is a challenge especially for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), as they have to cope with increasing water pressure when diving and they require watertight connections to actuators and sensors outside the AUV’s hull. In this chapter, we will concentrate on AUVs, since autonomous vessels or boats can be seen as AUVs without the diving functionality. The area of AUVs looks very promising to advance commercially, given the current boom of the resource industry combined with the immense cost of either manned or remotely operated underwater missions.