Unmanned Systems Technology 012 | AutoNaut USV | Connectors | Unmanned Ground Vehicles | Cobra Aero A33i | Intel Falcon 8+ UAV | Propellers | CES Show report

30 Dossier | AutoNaut boat hooks and pulling and pushing it around leisure craft moored at the same jetty until it could be roped to the side of a RIB, piloted by Bromley, which would accompany it during the afternoon’s testing. Normally, AutoNaut could be motored away from the jetty on the thruster, but Bromley was not keen to test the USV’s ice- breaking capabilities too severely. The team secured it alongside the RIB so that the two could move around the marina, through the lock and into the Chichester Channel as one vessel. On a longer transit to a test area it would be towed behind the RIB for the sake of speed and saving battery power. A flat calm meant the foils would not be generating any thrust, so the AutoNaut could only move independently by using its electric thruster. However, a team member who was rocking the boat showed clearly that the foils need just a little vertical motion to drive it. The tests of the various comms systems involved switching from local joystick control in the office to a team with a laptop in a car at a second position ashore over the Iridium link. Operating at home and with a crane available, that’s how the AutoNaut went into the water, but elsewhere it needs only a slipway. Modular assembly For road transport and subsequent deployment, the 5 m AutoNaut is designed to need only a minimum of disassembly and reassembly. “She’s designed so that two people can turn up in a van, unpack her, put her together in literally a matter of hours and launch and be away,” Bromley says. With the masts removed, the hull is in two sections that fit into purpose-built frames in the van, along with a launch recovery trolley system, the joystick controller, RCW system, data links and sundries. This modular construction also makes it easier to palletise for air freight. The trolley system consists of two half-trolleys, one for each section of hull that enables the operators to bring them together at a convenient height for one of them to bolt the sections together. (The two trolley sections can be joined with a strut.) The process involves reaching through a deck hatch opening and securing nuts and sealing grommets, then sealing the hatch. Electrical and data connections are made on deck, outside the watertight compartments. “Once the hull halves are together and buttoned up, she’s watertight,” Bromley adds. “There are very few penetrations.” With all hatch covers and seals in place, and the solar panels bolted on over them (the central panel overlaps the join between the hull sections), the masts back on and all connections made, the AutoNaut can then be rolled into the water on the trolley, which is tall enough to keep the foils clear of the slipway until the boat floats off. One design point illustrating the attention to detail put into making AutoNaut robust is that the fasteners holding the solar panels down are designed to fail before the structure to which they are fixed, to help preserve the boat’s watertight integrity. This reinforces an overall impression of a robust tool designed to do a job, rather than a delicate instrument that demands pampering. As Bromley puts it, “To a degree she needs to be ‘agricultural’ because of the environment we are putting her into.” Harsh though that environment might be, the waves and the sunlight provide all the energy the AutoNaut family of USVs needs for propulsion and payload power for months of remote and autonomous operations on the world’s oceans. February/March 2017 | Unmanned Systems Technology She’s designed so that two people can turn up in a van, put her together in literally a matter of hours, launch and be away Securing the USV alongside the trial support RIB made it easier to manoeuvre through the tight confines of the marina, the lock and out to the test area (Photo: Peter Donaldson)