New variant of their unmanned undersea vehicle
During Sea-Air-Space in National Harbor this week, MD Riptide Autonomous Solutions displays a new variant of their unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV) product line. This particular vehicle is a deep rated version to support acoustic telemetry research programmes.
The deep UUV is rated for 1,500m depth but still only 7.5in (19.05cm) in diameter. Its payloads include CTD, acoustic modem and a custom towed acoustic receiver array. With industry leading low power hotel load this system can still deliver over 48 hours of endurance for field testing.
“The purpose of the current vehicle is to demonstrate long range, medium data rate acoustic underwater communications for a mission critical project,” Dan Lawrence, leading the effort for Riptide, noted. “To accomplish this we needed to operate for long periods in the deep sound channel.”
These waters, around 1,000m deep, are typically out of reach of compact UUVs, he explains. Riptide’s open source software and flexible mechanical design enabled the rapid development of this custom UUV and ensured the research programme could be executed as planned.
The deep UUV is on display at booth #2654. Also on display will be the second generation MK II µUUV recently introduced to the market. This vehicle offers performance and manufacturability improvements while retaining the payload versatility and open architecture of the original µUUV. Riptide has begun shipping the new MK IIs and can tailor systems for customers interested in deep applications.
