ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the considerations involved with the deployment, operation and recovery of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for hydraulic measurements in offshore and ice-covered environments. Although, it focuses on water sampling and in situ measurements of water properties as they are the most immediately applicable to hydraulics research, the application of AUVs for mapping surveys is of interest. The AUVs are tetherless unmanned submersibles, preprogramed to execute a series of commands with minimal to no surface communications. Production of an accurate bathymetric map of a water body is often the first step in environmental hydraulic studies, and AUVs. As a supplement or replacement of navigational aids, statistical methods, namely the linear Kalman Filter (KF) or the non-linear Extended KF, are often used with AUVs to improve positional estimates based on raw dead reckoning data. An AUV generates hydrodynamic pressure fields around itself when it is in motion.
