A low cost Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for patrolling and monitoring

The involvement of autonomous underwater vehicles for patrolling, monitoring or maintenance activities of submersed structures in the coastal strip, harbors or in proximity of off-shore plants (e.g. in oil& gas and military fields), can represent a high benefit for the economy of the related areas. For instance, continuous or more frequent monitoring can be possible, with a reduction of the necessary costs: The use of remotely operated vehicles with the linked implication of support ships and specialized pilots, or the involvement of professional divers, could be avoided or significantly reduced. The paper describes the FeelHippo autonomous underwater vehicles, the vehicle designed and built by the MDM Lab of the University of Florence; it is a low cost autonomous underwater vehicles suitable for these purposes. In particular, an onboard acoustic localization system, based on a low cost approach, has been implemented and preliminary experimental results are here reported.