Planet Ocean Backs ASV’s C-Enduro Development

Planet Ocean have worked closely with the development team at ASV, to ensure that the sensor and tracking technology deployed on C-Enduro vehicle is best in class.

C-Enduro is a long endurance autonomous surface vehicle used to safely and cost effectively collect data at sea.

Built to operate in all marine environments, C-Enduro uses energy harvesting technology combined with an efficient self-righting hull to deliver unprecedented payload capacity and power.

The C-Enduro vehicle was developed under a UK Government-backed Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) initiated by the National Oceanographic Centre’s (NOC) requirement for long endurance USVs for environmental research. The initiative is co-funded by the National Environment Research Council (NERC), NOC’s parent body, with the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and the Defence, Science and Technology Laboratories (DSTL).

Planet Ocean were asked to advise on the original sensor payload and vehicle tracking systems due to their considerable experience in these areas.  The obvious choice for sensors, were the Sea-Bird Scientific range, since these industry standard sensors will be acceptable to all of the potential users of this advanced vehicle system.  Also provided is the Airmar miniature multi-meteorological sensor.

Nova Scotia based XEOS Technologies Inc, design and manufacture the worlds most advanced range of satellite based tracking and asset protection systems.  Their ultra-miniature ONYX, GPS-Iridium beacon was selected due to its small size and impressive performance.

For the demonstrator project, Planet Ocean Ltd provided a WET Labs Triplet three-optical-sensor instrument configured for Chlorophyll-a 0-50ug/l / Backscatter 700nm and CDMOM to 375 ppb. The Triplet addresses the need for multiple simultaneous scattering and fluorescence sensors in a small single package.

The Airmar combined meteorological sensor has been deployed successfully by Planet Ocean on a variety of buoy based platforms and its small size and simplicity of operation belies the technological punch it packs, incorporating as it does, GPS, pitch roll and heading compensation as well as 5 different meteorological parameters.

The ONYX Iridium tracking systems is the smallest combined GPS-Iridium asset tracker available, measuring only 47.5 x 36.6 x 27.9 mm.