Hardware Design of Variable and Compact AUV “MONACA” for Under-Ice Survey of Antarctica

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) have a great potential for under ice explorations of both the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans. Most of the current under-ice AUVs are large and are used for long-distance survey. Survey results of these AUVs are extremely precise, but there is a trade-off between precision and running cost and/or risk of losing AUVs. In this paper, the authors propose a variable and compact AUV MONACA (Mobility Oriented Nadir AntarctiC Adventurer), which can offer the necessary and sufficient compositions for various survey needs by modular design. MONACA's range is smaller than conventional AUVs. However, the simple and compact AUV can reduce operation risk. Therefore, we are expecting MONACA to lower the hurdle of conducting challenging under-ice operations.