Low-cost Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for pipeline and cable inspections

The design considerations of a low-cost adaptation of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) devoted to pipeline and cable inspections is presented in this article. Periodic surveys are need in the preventive maintenance of submarine infrastructure of off-shore industries. The advantages of doing them with AUVs instead of remote operated vehicles or towed unmanned devices are low costs and better data quality in the inspection missions. Through a European Project funds (AUVI), the construction of a low-cost prototype for depths of 100 m AUV was initiated last year. The design considerations and proposed solutions, as well as a description of the hardware employed, the sensors in the payload, and the mission replanning module based on an expert system, are described in this work. Although a complete sea trial is still pending for the AUVI prototype, some computer and hardware in the loop simulations are briefly discussed.