Development of a micro autonomous underwater vehicle for complex 3-D sensing

Nekton Research is developing a new series of micro-autonomous underwater vehicles (MicroAUV) called Rangers/sup TM/ that house commercial, multi-parameter water sensor arrays. Teams of these 9-centimeter diameter MicroAUVs work together to allow multi-agent, distributed sensing of inshore and near shore water down to 100 m depth. Swimming in schools of 4 to 12 members, these vehicles will work together to characterize phenomena as diverse as chemical plume geometry, small scale mixing, and 3-D flow dynamics. This Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded program combines a matti-agent distributed network search algorithm developed at Sandia National Labs (SNL), and an acoustic communication and navigation system developed at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI), with a new breed of AUV-Nekton Research's Ranger/sup TM/.