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1 INTRODUCTION

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and autonomous

underwater vehicles (AUVs) are being increasingly

used for numerous purposes in both military and

civilian areas. Today’s applications of these systems

include surveillance, reconnaissance, remote sensing,

target acquisition, border and marine patrol,

infrastructure monitoring, communications support,

aerial imaging, industrial inspection and emergency

medical support. The UAVs and AUVs have

capacities of sensing and perceiving the environment,

processing the sensed information, communicating,

planning and decision making, as well as acting

autonomously by using control algorithms and

actuators [5]. The UAVs and AUVs presented in this

paper are deployed within EC Horizon 2020

COMPASS2020 (Coordination Of Maritime assets for

Persistent And Systematic Surveillance) project. This

project has a goal to use unmanned aerial and

underwater vehicles in operational coordination with

manned oceanic patrol vessels used by European

Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), to enhance current

marine border surveillance operations, with a

particular focus on the detection, monitoring and

control of irregular migration and narcotics

smuggling. The project has been conceived to assist

authorities in handling the pressure put on European

external borders by the vast amount of irregular

border crossings observed in recent years. Besides

struggling with irregular migrants, Europe has a

problem with other incidents of the most disperse

nature such as the long lasting issue of narcotics

trafficking [11]. Aiming to address these two big

challenges, the project proposes the development of

an unified system based on open standards that will

enable the combined operation of multiple unmanned

assets, manned platforms currently used for marine

surveillance and the future accommodation of other

platforms and services with minor integration efforts

[7;8;18].

Performances of Some Autonomous Assets in Maritime

Missions

S. Bauk

Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa

ABSTRACT: The paper deals with key features of some autonomous assets, i.e., unmanned aerial and

underwater vehicles used for marine surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Firstly, performances of Airbus

Zephyr S HAPS (Solar High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite), Tekever AR5 Life Ray Evolution and the AR3 Net Ray

medium altitude unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been analysed. Then, ECA Group A18 and A9

autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) features have been presented. The strengths, weaknesses,

opportunities and threats (SWOT) approach is applied to position appropriately these UAVs and AUVs in the

context of maritime security operations. The need for further investigation in the field is reveiled as well. The

analysed vehicles are assets deployed with the Europen Commission’s (EC) COMPASS2020 project and tested

over European seas.

http://www.transnav.eu

the International Journal

on Marine Navigation

and Safety of Sea Transportation

Volume 14

Number 4

December 2020

DOI: 10.12716/1001.14.04.12