Agile design of low-cost autonomous underwater vehicles

摘要

The capital cost of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) is still prohibitive for wide spread mass adoption. To address this, the ecoSUB programme is developing small low-cost reusable AUVs designed to minimize platform cost while acquiring measurements of essential physical and biogeochemistry ocean variables for scientific or industrial applications. This paper describes: the agile design methodology adopted for the ecoSUBμ5 development, presents results from initial trials and reflects on the advantages and disadvantages of utilising iterative development when compared to a more conventional waterfall design process.