Active Vehicles

Triton: 2008 Competition Vehicle	Proteus: 2007 Competition Vehicle

Vehicle Support

Vehicle Transportation Unit	Charging Station

For information on previous vehicles built by CUAUV visit the Legacy Vehicles page.

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are robotic submarines. They are a part of the emerging field of autonomous and unmanned vehicles and are primarily used as low cost reconnaissance tools. AUVs are valued for both their expendability and replaceability; they can be deployed in hazardous environments without risking human divers. Economically, the potential for cheap scalability make AUVs ideal for large scale and long term data collection tasks.

AUVs today are used within three main fields: military, offshore industry, and university research. The U.S. military and Department of Homeland Security are interested in using AUVs for mine detection, harbor patrol, and counter-surveillance. The offshore industry uses AUVs for equipment inspection and sea floor profiling for oil surveying. University researchers often use AUVs to facilitate specific research projects which require the autonomy and range that only AUVs can offer. For delicate data gathering tasks like wild-life monitoring and water profiling, AUVs are the only way to collect large sets of sample data consistently over time, due to their relatively small size and inconspicuous nature.