9730690 Bradley Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will continue development of a deep sea autonomous vehicle (AUV) capability that will provide a platform for a variety of sensors of interest to the ocean science community. A new undersea vehicle builds on the work and experience gained during development of the Autonomous Benthic Explorer (ABE) which is a prototype, designed and constructed to test engineering concepts while attempting to provide a useful capability for the deep sea research community. The ABE vehicle has characteristics which make it ideally suited for long term deployment of a variety of off-the-shelf sensors coupled with the precision navigation and control capabilities necessary to obtain a complete co-registered data set. However, ABE is not well suited for short-term routine utilization. Based on scientific and logistical requirements, there is a need for an ABE-like AUV specifically designed for routine short-duration operations to occur simultaneously with more traditional scientific vehicles, such as ALVIN, Jason and towed instrumentation platforms. Significant design changes are required to create a vehicle that will meet these requirements, including 1) improved floatation, durability and efficiency of design to allow for frequent launch and recovery, and 2) alteration of the navigation system to allow many vehicles to operate simultaneously using the same transponder net. A second-generation ABE will be suitable for continuous daily operations and will be economical to operate. This project is to design and construct a second generation ABE vehicle (called "Sentry ) along with continued development of capabilities desired by the science community. The new vehicle will maintain the characteristics needed by science community. However, Sentry will be better suited for routine deployment by a small operations team for longer periods of time than with the present vehicle. Sentry should be able to m eet the requirements of the science programs presently hoping to utilize ABE and, its operational costs should be low enough to attract additional investigators.
