The Vehicles
AUV Demo Vehicle
The AUV demo vehicle was developed by FFI in early 1990 to test basic AUV principles, i.e. hydrodynamics, navigation and vehicle control.Included was the development and test of a novel sea water battery technology.
HUGIN I
This was the first vehicle developed for the offshore surveying application. It has been successfully used for commercial offshore pipeline route surveying since 1997. The vehicle mission endurance is limited to six hours, initially using rechargeable nickel cadmium (NiCd) batteries. The power for this vehicle is now rechargeable lithium-ion (Li-Ion) battery technology. Today it is used as a general test platform for new technology development and evaluation. Since 2002, the vehicle has been operated by the Norwegian Navy from one of their ships to gain experience on using AUV for mine counter-measure.
HUGIN II
This vehicle, now renamed NUI Explorer, is owned and operated by NUI AS for offshore surveying, fisheries research and environmental monitoring applications. The vehicle power is based on nickel metal hydride (NiMH) battery technology providing a mission endurance of approximately 20 hours. Its depth capability is 1,200m. The survey sensors installed are multibeam echosounder (MBE), sub-bottom profiler (SBP), conductivity/temperature/ depth (CTD) and fishery research echosounder.
Figure 1
HUGIN 3000
This is the latest AUV model in its series. The depthcapability is 3,000m. The power source is a novel semi-fuel cell battery providing >60 hours endurance with all survey systems running (MBE, side scan sonar (SSS), SBP and CTD). Since November 2002, two of these systems have been in commercial offshore use. The first was delivered in late 2000 to C&C Technologies Inc. Since then, C&C has successfully operated the vehicle in the GoM, off the west coast of Africa, off Brazil and in the Mediterranean. The vehicle has been operated in different water depths down to 2,850m. A total of more than 18,000 survey line kilometres has been covered successfully. The second was delivered August 2002 to the Norwegian survey company Geoconsult AS.
HUGIN 1000
This is a dedicated vehicle towards naval (mine counter-measures (MCM)/RAPID environmental assessment (REA)) applications. The vehicle is smaller than the HUGIN 3000, with a depth rating of 600m and an endurance of approximately 24 hours, depending on speed and payload configuration. Building on the commercially viable technology in daily use, it provides robustness and sound technical solutions to the challenging demands of modern navies. HUGIN 1000 and HUGIN 3000 will co-exist on the same technology base mutually benefiting from the advances made for its different applications. HUGIN 1000 is part of the Norwegian HUGIN Mine Reconnaissance System (HMRS) programme.
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