Development of ASV for using multiple AUVs operation

Japan has the sixth largest exclusive economic zone area in the world. It is becoming increasingly clear that seabed resources of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in Japan. They include mineral resources as well as important widely and abundantly distributed energy resources, such as methane hydrate. In recent years, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), which can obtain data of higher definition than survey vessels, are useful even for the survey of the ocean bottom resources. However, the survey area of an AUV is narrow and survey volumes are small.