Tuesday, September 18, 2007



With an ultimate range up to 1000 km, a maximum operating depth of 6000 m, and a
generous payload capacity of 0.5 m3, Autosub6000 will be one of the world’s most
capable deep diving science Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). It is scheduled
for deep water trials on the RRS Discovery in September 2007, after which it will be
available for science missions. We encourage proposals for the use of Autosub6000 from
2008 onwards. We envisage its use in a wide variety of missions, for example : overflow
and exchanges across sills, abyssal circulation + mixing, Southern Ocean mixing
processes, ocean ridge, marine census, canyons and sea-mounts, ocean margins benthic
communities, gas hydrate surveys.


Autosub6000 is the latest 6000 m rated version of the Autosub AUV series, which has
been used extensively for ocean science during the last 10 years, including work under
ice operations in the Arctic and Antarctic. The design of the nose and tail sections,
including the navigation and control systems, are substantially inherited from the tried
and tested Autosub3. The main difference is the depth rating (6000m rather than 1600m),
and the energy system (Lithium Polymer rechargeable batteries rather than primary
manganese alkaline cells).



Dimensions 5.5 m long, 0.9 m diameter
Mass 2000 kg (Dry), 2800 kg (Wet).
Range, endurance 1000 km at 1 m/s (8.6 days). 400 km at 1.6 m/s. (2.9 days).
The 2007 version will have 50% of this range.
Depth capability 6000 m maximum.
Navigation 0.1% of distance travelled since last GPS or USBL fix.
Telemetry and
Tracking
Linkquest TrackLink 10000 USBL and bidirectional telemetry system.
Control Modes Constant depth, constant altitude (5 to 200m), profiling.
Recharge time 5 hours from fully exhausted lithium polymer battery pack.
Standard Sensor
Suite
300 kHz RDI Workhorse ADCP. Fitting of Seabird 911 CTD be requested
from NMFD.
There are plans to fit a Mulitbeam system by August 2008.
Payload Capacity Similar to Autosub3. Large (0.5 m3) volumes free in the nose area for
payloads.
Power for sensors Up to 250 Watts at 48 volt.
Data Handling 100 M bit s-1 TP Ethernet .200 G byte data storage. IEEE 802.11g WiFi for
data download.
Shipping One standard 20 foot shipping containers. Launch and recovery gantry.


A titanium tube housing the Inertial
Navigation Unit (IXSEA-PHINS), a 300 kHz
RDI ADCP, and a high performance Thales
GPS receiver. We are developing navigation
algorithms, involving processing of imaging
or multibeam data, which, for area survey
missions in deep water, will maintain GPS
quality accuracy over periods of several days.