Institute Developing Autonomous Underwater Robots

(Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft)

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation (IOSB) in Ilmenau, Germany, with colleagues at other Fraunhofer facilities, are working on autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) that are smaller, more robust, and less expensive than underwater robots now in use. With current technology, underwater robots need to be directed by humans, which limits their capabilities, and are expensive to build and maintain.

The AUVs under development at IOSB will be able to find their bearings in clear mountain reservoirs as well as in turbid harbor water. They will be able to work on the floor of the deep sea as well as for inspections of shallow concrete bases that offshore wind power station have been mounted on.

A prototype vehicle (pictured left), is two meters long and equipped with eyes, ears, a brain, a motor, and batteries is expected to be deployed before the end of this year in a test tank in Ilmenau. The AUV is expected to put to sea for the first time in autumn 2011.

Fraunhofer engineers in Karlsruhe, Germany are working on vision for underwater robots, with a special exposure and analysis technology using lasers that permits orientation in clear and cloudy water. At the Ilmenau Fraunhofer branch, another team is developing the robot’s navigation system, to keep the vehicle on course.

Still another team, this one at Fraunhofer’s biomedical engineering institute in St. Ingbert is developing an architecture for the AUV that can protect the electronics housed inside from the high pressures at extreme ocean depths. Also at St. Ingbert, a team is developing an audio capability for the robots based an ultrasound rather than conventional sonar. Teams at Itzehoe and Oberhausen are working on the AUV’s power and energy management systems.

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