The autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) facility at the Australian Maritime College in Tasmania will allow researchers and engineers to build cutting edge autonomous underwater vehicles.
The $750,000 facility, located at the University of Tasmania’s Waterfront Building, will be adjacent to CSIRO’s Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship headquarters. It will be home to a fleet of robots used to survey the ocean’s depths, and collect scientific data on research missions. The building works are currently in progress, but are expected to be completed in late 2016.
According to the Australian Maritime College Principal Professor Neil Bose, the state-of-the-art facility will be unique within Australia, and one of just a handful of comparable facilities globally. Tasmania will thus be able to vie for the position of a world leader in underwater robotic technologies.
“Building our underwater robotic research capabilities not only enhances our reputation on the international stage, it also helps stimulate the local economy through the recruitment of specialist personnel and the use of a local architectural firm and other related industries,” Professor Bose said.
Facility coordinator Peter King, lab manager Alfian Marzuki and engineers Isak Bowden-Floyd, Nathan Kemp and Konrad Zurcher will run the facility.
"This facility will be a hub for world-class AUV research and technology. Through local and international collaborations, we aim to develop new data collection capabilities, improve reliability and increase autonomy of underwater vehicles," Facility Coordinator Peter King said.
"One of these projects, the Antarctic Gateway Partnership, will see us acquire and develop an underwater vehicle that tackles the great engineering challenges of venturing far beneath ice-covered waters to further our understanding of the Antarctic’s role in the world's climate.”
The $24 million Antarctic Gateway Partnership project is a Special Research Initiative of the Australian Research Council bringing together the University of Tasmania, CSIRO and the Australian Antarctic Division.
Its goals include building further polar research capability in Tasmania, developing a next-generation hybrid polar autonomous underwater vehicle to acquire high resolution data under sea ice and ice shelves, providing a near real-time sea ice charting service for the East Antarctic region, and improve understanding about the interactions between the ocean and the Antarctic ice shelves.
Launceston firm Artas Architects were tasked with designing a facility big enough to accommodate the Antarctic Gateway Partnership AUV. The resulting autonomous underwater vehicle will be up to eight metres long, weigh three tonnes, and be able to venture more than 100 kilometres while collecting data from the seafloor at depths of about 4000-5000 m, and beneath ice shelves and sea ice.
[Pictured above: Artas Architects' Heath Clayton (L) and Peter King.]