Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV)
Artemis
Phoenix operates and maintains a 5,000-meter depth-rated Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Artemis, “Goddess of the Hunt”, search and survey deep-water system. Equipped with multiple payloads, backseat control architecture, and a Phoenix-built payload computer, the vehicle can accept a variety of sensors enabling real-time behavior control of the vehicle based on sensor input. The vehicle has a dive endurance of 20 hours at 3.5 knots, a deck turnaround time of less than 4 hours, and a seven-man crew allows for 24/7 operations.
This highly portable system ships globally and its small footprint makes it ideal for deployment onboard economical vessels of opportunity, while its modular design and field swappable batteries allow for rapid on-deck turnaround times and the ability to change payloads quickly- resulting in more efficient operations.
Commercial Applications
The Artemis AUV system delivers quality survey work with high-precision navigation and terrain-following capabilities and supports a variety of missions including:
- Mineral Surveys
- Archaeological Surveys
- Pipeline Surveys
- Geophysical Surveys
- Search Operations
- Habitat and Benthic Surveys
- Route and As-Built Surveys
- Optical Documentations
Payload Configurations
The Artemis AUV system permits payload flexibility and has three mission payload configurations (acoustic, optical, and geophysical) that can be swapped with minimal effort in the field. Additionally, the system is continually adapted to customer-driven payload requirements, supported by in-house engineering and programming by experienced deepwater vehicle experts.
Acoustic Payload
The Acoustic Payload can simultaneously operate a 100/400 kHz Reson 7125 multibeam echosounder, and an Edgetech 2200 side-scan sonar and chirp 2-16 kHz sub-bottom profiler increasing the data density and cost efficiency per survey line with efficient single-pass data collection.
Optical Payload
The optical payload is a high-resolution (1936 X 1456 pixels) Prosilica GX1920 camera that produces 25-square-meter black and white still imagery which can be georeferenced to produce mosaic plots.
Geophysical Payload
The geophysical payload concurrently operates a 3-axis magnetometer with nanotesla sensitivity, an electric field (self-potential sensor) with a 3-meter dipole with millivolt sensitivity, a multi-beam echosounder collecting backscatter and bathymetry, and a CTD.
System Equipment
The complete system includes topside equipment, an ultra-short baseline (USBL) system, a Launch & Recovery System (LARS), AUV, batteries, and complete sparing/maintenance tools. It ships as 20 pieces, weighs 20,000 lbs, and has a total volume of 1,000 cubic feet. The vehicle, batteries, and support equipment are designed to be easily broken down and packaged for rapid shipment, an ideal feature essential to Phoenix’s need to support its worldwide operations on short notice and to remote regions.
Navigation
An onboard internal navigation system, doppler velocity log, ring laser gyro, and depth sensor combined with a USBL system produce highly accurate, repeatable, and reliable navigation and positioning of the vehicle.
Launch & Recovery
Using our designated docking head, the vehicle can be launched and recovered using most vessel cranes with a 5,000-lb. lifting capacity at a maximum reach of 18-24 feet. The Artemis AUV system also has a dedicated articulated knuckle boom crane (Palfinger PK32002M) that is skid-mounted and can ship with the system providing stand-alone launch and recovery capabilities.