Design and development of an under-ice autonomous underwater vehicle for use in Polar regions

Abstract

Presented here is the initial hardware and software design of the Icefin autonomous underwater vehicle for use in under-ice missions in Antarctica. Exploration of the ocean beneath hundreds of meters of ice in Antarctica is a difficult task. However, many areas of science are interested in obtaining data from this environment and other similar environments including Jupiter's moon Europa. Deployment of an unmanned underwater vehicle to obtain data beneath Earth's ice shelves is much less dangerous and expensive than manned submarines or human diver deployments. However, the under-ice environment presents many unique challenges for an unmanned underwater vehicle including deployment through a small ice hole and extreme temperatures. The Icefin vehicle is designed as a modular, man portable, vertically deployed vehicle able to withstand the environmental challenges of the Polar Regions and the extreme depths required for the missions of interest. The Icefin has been designed with a full sensor suite to facilitate the necessary scientific data collection. The software suite used by the vehicle is designed around the MOOS middleware framework. This vehicle is slated to be deployed in Antarctica starting October 2014.