Self-Positioning Smart Buoys, The "Un-Buoy" Solution: Logistic Considerations using Autonomous Surface Craft Technology and Improved Communications Infrastructure

Abstract

Moored buoys have long served national interests, but incur high development, construction, installation, and maintenance costs. Buoys which drift off-location can pose hazards to mariners, and in coastal waters may cause environmental damage. Moreover, retrieval, repair and replacement of drifting buoys may be delayed when data would be most useful. Such gaps in coastal buoy data can pose a threat to national security by reducing maritime domain awareness. The concept of self-positioning buoys has been advanced to reduce installation cost by eliminating mooring hardware. We here describe technology for operation of reduced cost self-positioning buoys which can be used in coastal or oceanic waters. The ASC SCOUT model is based on a selfpropelled, GPS-positioned, autonomous surface craft that can be pre-programmed, autonomous, or directed in real time. Each vessel can communicate wirelessly with deployment vessels and other similar buoys directly or via satellite. Engineering options for short or longer term power requirements are considered, in addition to future options for improved energy delivery systems. Methods of reducing buoy drift and positionmaintaining energy requirements for self-locating buoys are also discussed, based on the potential of incorporating traditional maritime solutions to these problems. We here include discussion of the advanced Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) communications draft protocol which offers improved wireless communication capabilities underwater, to adjacent vessels, and to satellites. DTN is particularly adapted for noisy or loss-prone environments, thus it improves reliability. In addition to existing buoy communication via commercial satellites, a growing network of small satellites known as PICOSATs can be readily adapted to provide low-cost communications nodes for buoys. Coordination with planned vessel Automated Identification Systems (AIS) and International Maritime Organization standards for buoy and vessel notification systems are reviewed and the legal framework for deployment of autonomous surface vessels is considered.

Cooperative Localization for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

“…Combining the concept of a mobile LBL-beacon [24], which not only provides a range to the interrogating vehicle but also its position, with the idea of using consecutive range measurements combined with dead-reckoning information led to the concept of Moving Long Baseline (MLBL). This concept was first expressed by Vagany et al [88].…”

SWORDFISH: an Autonomous Surface Vehicle for Network Centric Operations

“…Leaderfollower strategies for Swordfish and for the Isurus AUV will be tested with feedback loops closed over the acoustic channel. These developments will allow the ASV to do AUV track following and to aid the AUV navigation with global and acoustic position updates [15] [8]. This will enable us to further develop recent work on rendezvous missions for AUVs (based on underwater communications [7]).…”

Towards Active Course Marks for Autonomous Sailing Competitions

“…The buoys act as remote sensing nodes or probes, which may also include storage and communication services, among other functionalities. They range from self-controlled or autonomous [7] [5] [8] to remotely operated, from moored, to drifting [4] or mobile [7] [8], from batch to real time communication [5] modes, from surface floating to underwater [7] [8] devices, from single node to multiple node systems [1] [7] and cover a wide spectra of application fields, e.g., pollution detection [6], hydrology system monitoring [2], shallow water ecosystem monitoring [1], bathymetric surveys [3] or underwater environmental monitoring [7].…”