HUGIN-AUV concept and operational experiences to date

During the last few years autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) technology has evolved from concept demonstrators towards commercial products. The driving forces are the move for energy exploitation towards deeper waters, naval applications and the Internet driven need for more intercontinental underwater communication cables. Other applications emerging for the future would be within environmental research and monitoring and deepwater exploration. Deepwater developments beyond the continental shelf would require the same level of survey data quality and intervention access as established for shallow water. The potential for cost savings is two folds. Firstly, there is a reduction in the survey cost it self and secondly there is a considerable cost saving by avoiding over design of subsea installations due to lack of sufficient documentation of the field. In this scenario, there is an increasing understanding that underwater robotics and in particular AUVs would play an important role in future survey and subsea engineering work. The AUV as a free swimming underwater survey sensor carrier has several advantages compared to cable controlled ROVs and deep towed systems. The paper focusses on the HUGIN AUV concept and field results from the North Sea and Gulf of Mexico.