The following video shows the capabilities of the Remote Environmental Monitoring Unit System REMUS 600 AUV, designed through funding from the Office of Naval Research to support the US Navy’s growing need for operations requiring extended endurance, increased payload capacity, and greater operating depth. The REMUS 600 AUV boasts the same proven software and electronic subsystems found in the highly successful REMUS 100 AUV, with a depth rating and increased capabilities that take autonomous operations to the next level.
REMUS 600 features:
The REMUS 600 is the most versatile member of the REMUS AUVs. Its modular design enables it to easily reconfigure its sensors for mission specifics. It has a mission endurance of nearly 70 hours with speeds up to 5 knots at depths up to 600 meters. With its increased payload it has a range of 286 nautical miles. Just like the smaller REMUS-100 it has the ease of operation to be used with a laptop and very little auxiliary equipment.
The first REMUS 600 was developed at WHOI in 2003. Two more REMUS 600 (12.75 diameter) vehicles have been built to date.
REMUS missions are planned using a highly refined interface program on a laptop computer and then are transferred to the vehicle before launch. The UUV self-navigates to a designated mission area and employs its sensors on a pre-planned route to gather information about the environment, including acoustic and electro-optic imagery of the sea bottom. REMUS can be programmed to self-adjust its mission profile to further investigate and re-image detected bottom objects or react to new mission profiles remotely transmitted to the vehicle by the tactical decision-maker.
REMUS enables the warfighter to remotely and clandestinely survey and search the littoral battlespace in support of special operations and amphibious warfare. Additional missions can include search of confined areas, such as ports, harbors and anchorages. Standoff deployment of the UUV increases the margin of safety for those historically tasked with such dangerous missions. REMUS capabilities also allow the rapid determination of battlespace situation, reducing the traditional time it has taken to prepare the battlespace for special operations missions and amphibious assault.
[mappress] Naval Today Staff, February 12, 2013; Image: Kongsberg