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The ENDURANCE project is lead by OceanScan - Marine Systems and Technology in co-promotion with the Laboratório de Sistemas e Tecnologia Subaquática (LSTS-FEUP) from Porto University.

OceanScan's flagship product is the LAUV (Light Autonomous Underwater Vehicle), a platform with the capability to operate autonomously underwater, integrating various sensors and sonars. When configured with the appropriate sensors, LAUV is a very versatile, efficient and economical tool. The autonomous vehicle can be used for many applications such as oceanographic research, hydrographic surveys, impact assessment of waste water discharges, search and detection of objects and underwater structures, among many others.

Currently, LAUV has an endurance of up to 24 hours which is practical for bottom mapping applications but not for long-time adaptive surveys. Aiming o extend the range of applications within the reach of this tool, and taking into account today environmental issues, the ENDURANCE project will adapt current-day technology to develop a new and innovative system for oceanographic observations over longer periods of time.

LAUV Evolution

The Laboratório de Sistemas e Tecnologia Subaquática (LSTS) is an interdisciplinary research laboratory established in 1997 with researchers drawn from Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and from Computer Science.

LSTS is specialized on the design, construction, and operation of unmanned underwater, surface and air vehicles and on the development of tools and technologies for the deployment of networked vehicle systems.

In the last 20 years researchers from the LSTS have successfully fielded unmanned air, ground, surface and underwater vehicles in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and also in the Mediterranean sea. These vehicle systems implement the LSTS control architecture with the help of the LSTS Neptus-IMC-Dune software toolchain. Neptus is a distributed command, control, communications and intelligence framework for operations with networked vehicles, systems, and human operators. IMC is a communications protocol that defines a common control message set understood by all types of LSTS nodes. DUNE is the system for vehicle on-board software. It is used to write generic embedded software at the heart of the vehicle, e.g. code for control, navigation, or to access sensors and actuators. It provides an operating-system and architecture independent C++ programming environment for writing efficient real-time reactive tasks in modular fashion. The toolchain has support for Disruptive Tolerant Network (DTN) protocols.

OceanScan-MST co-founders started designing, building and operating underwater vehicles and systems for more than a decade (since 2001). During that period a Lightweight Autonomous Underwater Vehicle prototype was awarded with a Portuguese innovation prize and the team, from Porto University, was challenged to further evolve the LAUV and create a company.

In February 2008 OceanScan – Marine Systems & Technology was founded as an independent and private company with the mission to design, develop, manufacture and market innovative systems for oceanographic surveys, environmental monitoring and underwater inspection applications. Porto University strategic cooperation was key to have a competitive and unique system with a growing community of users worldwide.

OceanScan-MST innovative, cost effective, lightweight autonomous underwater vehicle is possible because the R&D and Production departments are interconnected, sharing key resources. The work carried out in Production is focused on the design, assembly of high level systems, tests and quality control, in which the production of the mechanical parts and hardware is done through outsourcing. This way flexible solutions with short lead times can be offered to customers.

www.oceanscan-mst.com