Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV)
Artemis
Phoenix International operates and maintains Artemis, a state-of-the-art Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) rated to depths of 5,000 meters. Purpose-built for deep-water search and survey operations, Artemis is one of the most advanced systems of its kind—designed for performance, flexibility, and global deployment.
Compact and highly portable, Artemis can be quickly mobilized and shipped to mission locations around the world. Its small footprint enables operations from economical vessels of opportunity, reducing total mission cost without sacrificing capability.
Key Features:
- Modular payload bays for rapid reconfiguration based on mission needs
- Field-swappable batteries to maximize uptime and reduce turnaround
- High-resolution sensor suite for seafloor mapping, detection, and data collection
- Designed for reliable performance in the most challenging subsea environments
With Artemis, Phoenix delivers precise, efficient, and cost-effective subsea data acquisition—supporting commercial, government, and defense operations worldwide.
Commercial Applications
The Artemis AUV system delivers high-quality survey results through precision navigation, advanced terrain-following capabilities, and a robust suite of onboard sensors. Its performance and adaptability make it ideal for a wide range of survey missions, including:
- Mineral Exploration
- Marine Archaeology
- Pipeline & Cable Inspection
- Geophysical Surveys
- Search Operations
- Habitat and Benthic Mapping
- Route and As-Built Surveys
- Optical Documentation & Imaging
Payload Flexibility & Expert Support
The Artemis AUV offers exceptional payload flexibility, with three interchangeable mission configurations that can be swapped in the field with minimal effort. This modular approach allows rapid adaptation to varying mission requirements—from search and survey to complex data acquisition tasks.
The system is backed by Phoenix’s in-house engineering and software development teams, comprised of experienced deepwater vehicle experts. This ensures that every deployment is supported by the technical knowledge and responsiveness needed for real-time adjustments, mission planning, and system optimization.
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. This increases 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 a 25-square-meter black-and-white still imagery that 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 to support worldwide operations.
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.