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ACT Autonomous Surface Vehicle Workshop Report
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Executive Summary
The Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT) convened a workshop on
Autonomous Surface
Vehicles (ASVs) for Shallow Water Mapping and Water Quality Monitoring
at the University of
Maryland’s Chesapeake Biological Laboratory on November 18-20, 2015. The goal of the
workshop was to develop a consensus of future actions that would accelerate the use of
unmanned systems, particularly ASVs, to meet shallow water survey requirements established
by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and to aid in the transition of
evolving technologies from “research tools” to “operational tools.” While the initial scope of
the workshop focused on shallow water, the lessons learned through participant exchange will
allow for informed decisions regarding broader ocean applications of ASVs. In particular, the
workshop focused on opportunities in the user market, performance parameters, usability
requirements, cost considerations, and feasibility of use.
To facilitate broad input in the feasibility of unmanned systems use, workshop participants
included representatives from the private sector, research and end-user communities. Private
sector participants included vendors and manufacturers of ASVs. End-user participants
included resource managers responsible for preservation and stewardship of coastal regions.
The research community included representatives from academia, state and federal agencies.
Participants were asked to assess current state and future applications of ASV use to meet a
variety of needs. For example, could ASVs
provide improved efficiency of data acquisition,
including a reduction in time, personnel, and operating costs; improved quality of data
acquired; improved safety of survey operations; and provide data that is beneficial, but
otherwise unattainable or typically difficult to obtain?
The workshop included a field demonstration of ASV systems by attending
vendors/manufacturers to provide proof of performance in the field and demonstrate real-time
autonomous survey capabilities. The vendors/manufacturers were given a hydrographic
challenge to provide a demonstration survey of an approach channel to Solomons Island, MD
and associated shoals in adverse weather conditions.
Autonomous systems offer advantages over manned systems. Autonomy can be described as
independence, or freedom from external control or influence. ASVs represent a field of
emerging, integrated, marine observing technologies that includes hardware, software,
platforms, sensors, data acquisition, storage, processing and transfer technologies, on a vessel
moving across the water surface in an intelligent manner. Presently, ASVs offer extended
mission endurance (as great as 20 days), excellent payload capabilities, and large power
budgets available for both instrumentation and data storage/analysis. Coupled with relatively
shallow drafts and the ability to produce high quality survey products in environments which
are repetitive (dull), hazardous to human crews (dangerous) and environmentally unhealthy
(dirty) make ASVs a promising tool. Hence, the “three Ds” of dull, dangerous and dirty, define
the current suite of missions ideally suited for ASV operations.