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mercredi 19 juillet 2017

How We Use Unmanned Surface Vehicles

By Douglas Gibson


Anyone with a mapping program on their computer is familiar with how the contours the land are shown. These mountains and valleys are depicted in lakes as well as oceans, and many people might assume that all this was done from satellites. However, a great deal of this mapping is being done with unmanned surface vehicles.

It is absolutely amazing how much of this type of work can now be done by remote control with little to know oversight. There are prototypes available to universities or governments which will perform mapping duties on their own. The parameters of the area they wish to cover are programmed, and the progress is monitored by a vehicle control station, or VCS.

Maintaining this VCS is done through an application which can be loaded onto a cell phone or any other device. The person or people conducting the study track the progress of their project in real time, day and night, and can continue to do so as long as the batteries last. Not only can they keep tabs of the progress as well as battery life, but they know if the vehicle runs into any snags as well.

The process of mapping oceans or lake bottoms is known as bathymetry. Traditionally this task has been performed by manned boats using sonar equipment. It is a laborious process which requires them to comb the sea or lake bed in a vacuum-sweeper fashion, and their work is inhibited by nightfall as well as weather.

These USVs are robotic vessels that do not require a great deal of human intervention to run. They are electric, and so also do not require gasoline to be run for days on end. They hold up very well in bad weather, and are all around a better option for this type of work than traditional manned boats.

A USV can actually go right into the heart of a hurricane or monsoon, and take readings that would never have been allowed on boats with people aboard. We can now measure rainfall as well as ocean swells without risking life, and at a fraction of the cost of a lost ship. The data is remotely received in real time, so even if the vessel disappears in the deep, nothing is lost.

There are many individuals in the private sector who might have use for these technologies as well. Anyone owning properties that contain small lakes or ponds know how important it is to keep a regular tab on the depth of the water body. By sweeping their ponds, they will know if there are structures or vegetation at depths that could be risky to swimmers and boats, and some will even alert them to the presence of undercurrents or dams created by animals.

Law enforcement is now able to utilize such technology in search and rescue missions. Humans will become tired long before the batteries of a small USV will wear out. The very hit-or-miss nature of such search and rescue can now be done in a manner much more efficient and therefore more likely to preserve human life in the event of a disaster.




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