Long Cruising Trial of AUV “URASHIMA”

A Deep Sea Cruising AUV “URASHIMA” has been developed by JAMSTEC since 1998. The dimensions and weight are 10m (L), 1.3m (W), 1.5m (H), and about 7.5 tons in air. A main power source device system of AUV “URASHIMA” is a large capacity of lithium-ion (Li-ion) rechargeable battery system or Solid Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell (PEFC) system. AUV “URASHIMA” will be able to cruise for about 100km with Li-ion battery system and it will cruise for about 300km with fuel cell system. The cruising trial used by the fuel cell system will start at the end of 2002. The instruments for science researches are an automatic multi-water-sampling system, a CTDO, a side-scan sonar, a digital still camera with a thermoelectrically cooled CCD image sensor, a TV camera, and so on. Three operation modes, which are UROV mode, acoustic remote control mode and autonomous mode, are available. Those three kinds of modes are used acceding to each development stage and ocean researches. UROV mode is to monitor the state of the vehicle with fiber optics. At the first development stage of AUV “URASHIMA”, we carried out long cruising trial for about 100km and maximum operational depth trial at 3,500m used by Li-ion rechargeable battery system. URASHIMA was succeeded to reach at 3,518m depth of the seafloor at the sea trial of August 2001. We also carried out long cruising trial that was controlled by autonomous mode. Then, URASHIMA was cruised 70km distance at the sea trial of December 2001. We will have a next sea trail on May 2002 for 100km long cruising test. At the next development stage, we will carried out long cruising trial for 300km used by the fuel cell system.