Unmanned Systems Technology 009 | Ocean Aero Submaran S10 | Simulation and testing | Farnborough report | 3W-110xi b2 TS HFE FI | USVs | Data storage | Eurosatory/UGS 2016 report

23 U nique is an overused word, but it certainly applies to the concept embodied in Ocean Aero’s Submaran S10, which the company describes as the first wind- and solar- powered surface and subsurface unmanned vessel. It can sail for months propelled by a wing sail, power its systems from photovoltaic panels and batteries and, when necessary, fold its sail down and submerge. Mooted applications include environmental monitoring, remote area protection, tracking marine mammals, fishery monitoring, gathering weather and oceanographic data, mapping the ocean floor, surveillance and security, and acting as a communications gateway between underwater, surface and airborne vehicles. Also, as an alternative to the direct purchase of the vehicle, the company is offering the S10 as a ‘system as a service’ solution in these areas, with options including mission planning, sensor suite definition, comms integration, operations, maintenance, launch and recovery and a cloud infrastructure for previewing and downloading mission data. The project came about after Ocean Aero’s vice-president Ken Childress and co-founder Mark Ott had been working for several years on the US Navy’s Harbor Wing project, under which they developed two unmanned sailing vessels, one a 30 ft catamaran, the other a 50 ft trimaran. In 2010, however, the funding fell victim to US government cuts. By 2011, Childress and Ott were out of a job and considering how to apply what they had learnt through Harbor Wing to a new business. It had become clear to them that there was a growing demand for unmanned vessels, both surface and subsurface, in commercial and military applications, but also that the boats they had been working on were bigger than the most likely applications required. “So we scaled our thinking down,” Childress says, “and then the big problem became, if you are going to put a 15 ft vessel out in the middle of the ocean and it’s going to sail, how are you going to protect it if the weather gets really bad?” The first answer to that question was that the wing sail would have to fold down to get it out of the wind, while a second answer, aimed at providing options for avoiding collisions or other threats, was more radical: “It would be really cool if it could submerge, so we started working out how to sink a sail boat,” Childress says. The team settled on a length of 15 ft mostly to keep the vessel to a size that could be handled, launched and recovered by two people, but also to ensure the ability to ship multiple units in 20 ft cone containers. Technically, it is long enough to carry 5 knots of speed and handle sea state 3/4 operationally. Before we dig into the fundamentals, a brief description is in order. The Submaran S10 is designed primarily to operate on the surface at 5 knots or Ocean Aero Submaran S10 | Dossier Building this unmanned surface/subsurface vessel meant overcoming some major engineering challenges, as Peter Donaldson explains immersion Unmanned Systems Technology | August/September 2016 The big problem became, if you are going to put a 15 ft vessel out in the middle of the ocean, how are you going to protect it if the weather gets bad?