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ACT Autonomous Surface Vehicle Workshop Report
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At sea, operational requirements must be met, while still pursuing greater functionality in ASV
operational modes. Currently, at sea retrieval, maintenance, and repair of existing ASV models
have proven to be costly and difficult. At the present state of ASV development, little crew or
cost savings have been realized over conventional survey operations. There are notable
exceptions to this generalization when ASVs are used as a force multiplier, working in
collaboration (within line of sight) of a conventional survey platform.
Acknowledging that ASV development has lagged behind underwater autonomous vehicle
development, the workshop participants made the following recommendations for continuing
the improvement of ASV use and operation and assessing user needs in both the short and long
term:
1.
Continue development of base, open source systems for broader use and greater
adoption.
2.
Establish an ASV Technical Committee to advise future development and bring to the
ASV environment best practices already established by other domains.
3.
Develop and communicate success cases to aid in greater adoption and use of ASV
platforms for a wide variety of survey and water quality monitoring applications.
4.
For specific applications, identify funding partners for continued research and
development.
5.
Develop a set of recommended best practices.
6.
Create a national/international, repository/database of available platforms and sensor
technologies.
7.
Develop expectations for responsible conduct of “at sea” operations as a function of
survey complexity (environment).
8.
Develop a strategy for adoption by: a) looking at levels of autonomy and best practices
in other modes - terrestrial, aerial, etc.; and b) incorporating maturing technologies into
next generation ASVs.
ACT could help stimulate multiple markets and resource needs to demonstrate capacity. For
example, the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Marine Sensor Innovation: Ocean
Technology Transition appears ideal to aid in further developing ASV technology for ocean
applications (Department of Commerce, 2015).
At the current state of technology, ASVs are better referred to as
Unmanned
Surface Vehicles,
given the current level of operator intervention and monitoring that is required for safe and
effective operations. Unmanned systems, regardless of level of autonomy, should not be
considered as viable one-for-one replacements for manned survey platforms, nor should their
adoption be driven by a desire to reduce staffing. It would be beneficial to identify specific
operational environments, observation requirements, or concepts of operations for which
unmanned systems are well-suited and to fund operational demonstrations to strengthen the
case for their transition to operational acceptance.