Design and Testing of a Compact Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Archaeological Surveying and Monitoring

Zeno (Zeno Environment Nautical Operator) is a compact AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) designed by the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Florence (UNIFI) and MDM Team S.r.l., an official spin-off company of UNIFI, within the ARCHEOSUb (Autonomous underwater Robotic and sensing systems for Cultural HEritage discovery cOnservation and in SitU valorization) European project and tailored for archaeological missions. One of the main purposes of this project is to develop low-cost AUVs, both used as a tool for services supporting the identification of new Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH) sites and for the conservation, protection and enhancement of new and discovered ones (covering the first two phases of an archaeological campaign: search and inspection). The paper deals with the design, realization and testing of the vehicle. Its main features, payloads and implementation details are given. The official demos have already started and will be completed in autumn 2018; the different archaeological sites involved are in Italy and in Israel.