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48 Insight | USVs The craft’s name stands for ‘First Responder, 10 m’, referring to its application and length, and it has been designed to navigate autonomously to assigned locations in order to record 360 º videos above and below the water’s surface – potentially by deploying an ROV system – quicker than any other USV currently available. In addition to launching and recovering ROVs from an integrated hangar bay, it is also designed to carry sonars, current profilers, radars, 360 º video, satellite comms, EO/IR systems, and Lidar for mapping and collision avoidance. The craft has been developed for a range of high-speed applications, including search & rescue, environmental hazard detection, disaster area monitoring, interdictions and other urgent or emergency survey tasks. The FR-10 uses a patented aerodynamic control system based on two vertical stabilisers that extend upwards from its rear deck area. Each one has a longitudinal rudder on its back, with an elevator control surface joining them near their tops. While the primary propulsion and steering will come from outboard electric thrusters and submerged rudders installed at the back of the craft, the stabilisers will provide an extra layer of precision control. The rudders assist steerage while the elevator alters the USV’s angle of attack. These control surfaces and thrusters (which are powered by a lithium-ion battery pack, with a diesel turbo- generator installed as a range extender) enable the FR-10 to achieve a top speed above 100 mph (161 kph), although the exact figure will be confirmed during testing later this year. “The turbo-generator is far better in terms of power-to-weight ratio versus a piston engine of equivalent output,” says Enrique Enriquez, president of SWL Robotics. “The prototype’s hull is 90% carbon fibre, to keep the weight down as much as possible and to help both the acceleration and battery endurance.” Once the prototype tests are completed, SWL Robotics anticipates producing the fully unmanned and autonomous version well within the subsequent 12 months, with its design expected to remain mostly the same as the manned/unmanned version. The ROV to be deployed from the FR-10 is SWL’s patented 360-ROV. It is designed as a modular system capable of carrying 4K cameras, UV lights and Lidars to suit end-users’ different requirements. “The FR-10 has been designed from the start with the aim of making it a fully unmanned vehicle,” Enriquez notes. “On top of that, we’ve found that many USVs on the market incorporate ROV deployment systems as an afterthought.” The integral ROV launch & recovery system acts much like an aircraft’s landing gear, with four linear servos actuating a pair of bay doors that allow the tethered 360-ROV to be lowered from the hull. In the future, the company plans to carry out studies of solar panels, to determine which type of solar cell should be installed, primarily for powering an emergency transponder if the battery should fail and the USV becomes stranded during a mission. Research Seafloor Systems has completed the development phase of its newest USV for hydrographic survey, the EchoBoat-240. Originating as the next generation of its EchoBoat-160 USV, it features an all- new wave-piercing displacement hull shape, created from a blank sheet using SolidWorks by the company’s ocean engineer JT Myers. The hull is 2.4 m long and 0.9 m wide. With batteries installed, it weighs June/July 2020 | Unmanned Systems Technology The new EchoBoat-240 is to be used in offshore operations by USACE and NOAA (Courtesy of Seafloor Systems) We’ve found that many USVs currently on the market incorporate ROV deployment systems as an afterthought