Unmanned Systems Technology 007 | UMEX 2016 report | Navya ARMA | Launch & recovery systems | AIE 225CS | AUVs | Electric motors | Lethal autonomous weapons

64 density of marine life around the craft. Echo sounder transceivers on a rail mount in an air-sealed section aft of the wet transducer section connect to the boards via Ethernet. Each stack uses a 2.26 GHz board with a commercial Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4 Gbytes of RAM, dual gigabit Ethernet, and two solid-state hard drives running Windows 7. Both stacks are coupled to the vehicle’s network via Ethernet, allowing the computers to be viewed and controlled remotely through the vehicle’s wired and wireless connections. One stack runs Simrad’s ER60 data acquisition software along with the operating system on one hard drive, and stores the data directly on the second. This stack also has a serial connection to the electronic control unit (ECU) that provides time, vehicle depth and position information that is automatically merged into the acoustic data stream. The second stack handles the processing of the acoustic data using software from Australian developer Echoview as well as a custom, standalone Windows-based application written in C++ that manages the software and passes the processed information to the ECU via Ethernet. The frequency of navigation instructions is determined within the data processing program implemented in Echoview, which provides near real- time analysis that can incorporate basic data processing along with tools for combining the frequencies of acoustic data, analysis of targets, volume scattering integration and more. When acoustic sensors aboard the vehicle detect the right size and concentration of squid, it triggers a second mission: to report the AUV’s position in the water and then run a pre-programmed grid to map the area in finer detail.  In one test, the higher-level scan revealed a concentrated collection of squid in one area and a second, less tightly woven mass of similarly sized squid as the scan moved north to south. These are details that might have been missed if the REMUS was only programmed to keep travelling in a straight line, according to Moline. He says, “It was a really simple test that demonstrated that it’s possible to use acoustics to find a species, to have an AUV target specific sizes of that species, and to follow the species – all without having to retrieve and reprogram the vehicle to hunt for something that will probably be long gone by the time you are ready.” He adds, “Imagine what else we could learn if the vehicle was constantly triggering new missions based on real- time information.” With multiple decision loops, an AUV could follow an entire school of squid or other marine life and create a continuous roadmap of its travel through the ocean. Another option would be to program the AUV to take a more detailed look if it sees something April/May 2016 | Unmanned Systems Technology The SeaFox is a one-shot naval mine disposal vehicle guided by fibre optics