Unattended operation of an autonomous seaplane for persistent surface and airborne ocean monitoring

The Flying Fish unmanned seaplane, shown capable of self-managed sequences of independent flight during testing with the first generation vehicle, has been updated with the creation of second generation research vehicle that incorporates solar-energy harvesting. The new Flying Fish possesses a unique capability set that lends itself to mission concepts involving long term deployment approaching perpetual operation. As a unique flight system capable of operating from any sufficiently large body of water, generating and flying self-initiated flight plans, and collecting solar energy for infrastructure-independent operation it leads the way for the development of fully unattended flight operations on the ocean. For a system such as Flying Fish to operate without user intervention for long periods it must possess robust and fully-featured planning faculties. It must be able to develop accurate predictions of energy collection and loss in order to ensure energy survivability. It must be able to plan flights based on high-level mission input, or at least to assemble and execute appropriate flight plans from available mission parameters. Such a system would require system wide management software and would have to have a powerful suite of flight sensors. The implementation of these features in the second generation Flying Fish will be presented. This paper will also discuss the additional technologies and features that still need to be developed to realize a perpetual flying unattended ocean monitoring buoy, including: management of scientific payloads to best conduct unattended science and robust sense-and-avoid capabilities to safely negotiate obstacles on the open ocean. Missions and applications will be used to highlight capabilities and challenges and to motive this research.