MONITOR

fleet of four micro-AUVs

Description

The MONITOR project aims to combine the deployment of a fleet of four underwater micro-AUVs, each carrying a measuring instrument collecting a particular type of data. The aggregation of these measurements will provide a virtually exhaustive overview of marine biodiversity, soundscapes, pelagic species distribution and benthic habitat structure.

Innovation

YUCOs are already the focus of particular attention at CNRS, so promising is this tool for democratizing sophisticated, spatialized measurements. They will be an addition to the spot surveys carried out by coastal observatories. The main advantages of this new fleet of 4 micro-AUVs over current methods are as follows:

They open up the possibility of new types of environmental studies, with new sensors on board: eDNA collectors or echo sounders with integrated image interpretation.
They reduce measurement acquisition costs.
They reduce the cost of measurements by a further 50%, by requiring fewer resources for deployment at sea (semi-rigid boat, beaching, manual launch by a single operator).
They reduce the risk at sea, since the loss of a drone only involves the loss of a single sensor worth no more than €50,000, and the rest of the campaign can continue.
They simplify the data acquisition process by enabling drones to be used simultaneously or sequentially.
They democratize the use of AUVs, making them easy to use thanks to their design and interfaces.