OceanServer Technology (OTI) has announced that it recently delivered two light-weight multibeam sonar equipped AUV’s to the Navy Special Warfare (NSW) command. These AUV’s were competitively procured and operationally tested prior to delivery to the NSW command at the Stennis Space Center in September of 2010. Additionally the Office of Naval Research (ONR) has contracted with OTI for a third vehicle to be delivered in December 2011.

This is the fifth such award to OTI over the past three years and represents the most sophisticated vehicle developed by OTI to date. Fully equipped with side scan sonar (SSS), doppler velocity log (DVL), acoustic doppler current profiler (ADCP), conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD) sensor, and multi-beam imaging sonar, the light-weight Iver is the industry leader in man-portable AUV systems. The NSW command anticipates operationally deploying the vehicles early in CY 2012.

The Iver platform

All Iver2 AUV models come standard with OceanServer’s VectorMap mission planning and data presentation tool, which provides geo-registered data files that can be easily exported to other software analysis tools. This unique AUV design has enabled OceanServer to carve out a very strong position in the research space for autonomous underwater vehicles, sensors and behavioral studies. The VectorMap program can input NOAA ENCs or any geo-referenced charts, maps or photo images, allowing the operator to intuitively develop AUV missions using simple point-and-click navigation.

The base vehicle, with a starting price at just over $50,000 gives university, government and commercial users an affordable base-platform for sensor development or survey applications in water quality, sub-surface security and general research.