USVs | Insight Propulsion comes from twin, 130 hp outboards, and when fully fuelled, the 900 x 400 x 227 mm USV weighs 6.8 t. USV-UUV hybrids The Triton is the latest version of Ocean Aero’s AUSV technology, with its design featuring a deployable wing, enabling the vehicle to use prevailing wind conditions to assist in surface transit as a longendurance USV. When required to dive, the Triton’s wing is stowed in a lowered, hydrodynamic position for submergence, and battery power is used for subsurface station-keeping or transiting (to maximum depths of 100 m). Intended as a multi-use, modular, sensor platform, the Triton features a payload bay within its underbelly, as well as optional payload integration locations in its keel and wing. All power generation comes from the solar cells along its sail and hull; its batteries can recharge at up to 740 W when the PV panels are at peak solar exposure. We last featured Ocean Aero eight years ago, in issue 9, investigating the Submaran S10, a predecessor of the Triton. The Triton measures 26 cm longer, at 4.4 m from bow to stern, and it notably has a 200 kg greater maximum weight at 350 kg, with its 37.6 kg payload capacity enabling 14 kg of additional sensors over its ancestor. On engineering objectives since 2016, Pasquale Derosa, director of product development at Ocean Aero, tells us: “We’ve made a lot of internal changes to power distribution, internal comms networks and edge processing computers, leveraging proprietary technology advancements, as well as utilising new innovations that have come out commercially since 2016. “Obstacle avoidance and threat evasion technology are especially important among those. We use a vision-based computer approach that ties above-surface cameras together with underwater sonar sensing for full situational awareness.” Ocean Aero’s main customers today are defence departments across the US and its allies, including recent exercises and deployments in the UK and South Korea, as well as with US Navy Task Force 59 and 52 in Bahrain (especially tasked with integrating, trialling, and maturing autonomous vehicles and AI capabilities in a naval context). A 360° camera system on Triton observes, detects and helps to identify potential threats, such that it can determine autonomously whether diving to evade them is prudent. It can then idle below the surface or power its thrusters to keep moving underwater at up to 2 knots. “The threat evasion logic is programmed with multiple tiers. Based on object classification, it can also report back to its operator to query if something is or isn’t a threat. Of course, if it already knows that what it is looking at is a threat, it will automatically go underwater to avoid capture or destruction,” DeRosa says. Summary Looking across the new vessels and their use cases discussed, it is notable that electrification seems to be picking up across USVs at a comparable pace to that seen in road vehicles. This makes sense when one considers that fleet managers across industry must optimise for cost and reliability, and electrified powertrains come with greatly reduced failure points compared with combustion powertrains. Additionally, with weight posing less of a problem in vessels than in cars, more battery packs can be installed in USVs without the effect of compounding mass, as seen in EVs in recent years. With the proliferation of hydrogen, hybrid and battery technologies across USVs, combined with autonomous vessels gradually becoming leveraged across ocean industries, infrastructure is likely to be adapted over time with new approaches for keeping eUSVs working and maintained at sea. Just as a few UUVs are now operating as resident systems via subsea docking and charging equipment, tomorrow’s wind farms may integrate electrolysers to generate hydrogen for on-site refuelling, as well as automated, battery swap stations. Such technologies are rapidly being commercialised for vehicles of varying sizes and configurations, and automated slipways for placing USVs into serviceable positions for battery swapping and other maintenance activities are well established. CONOPS and specialised equipment for many different vessel types have existed across international maritime standards for decades, and those for industrial ocean USVs can be expected to join them soon. 83 Uncrewed Systems Technology | June/July 2024 The submersible Triton is programmed with multiple tiers of threat evasion autonomy. When recognising a known threat, it may submerge to avoid detection or capture (Image courtesy of Ocean Aero)
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