In 2007, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) engineers began developing a new class of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to support chemical and biological sensing missions covering ranges of 1,000 kilometers or more. This new 12-inch diameter vehicle, named Tethys, is a highly energy-efficient propeller-driven AUV capable of operating at speeds between 0.5 and 1.0 meters per second that can employ larger, more powerful oceanographic sensors than traditional oceanographic gliders, to depths as great as 1500 meters. Over the past decade-plus, MBARI has built a fleet of 12 vehicles to support their research and have achieved over 40,000 hours of operational deployments.
The team at MBARI developed and matured this technology over the past decade to better explore, map, and monitor the ocean. With a growing market demand for these unique vehicles, in September of 2023, MBARI selected Saab to commercialize the Tethys Long Range AUV. Now with the transition to Saab, the Tethys team is focused on fielding greater quantities of these vehicles to further oceanographic research. This versatile platform can be outfitted with a variety of payloads, including microbial sampling (environmental DNA or eDNA), bioluminescence, active bio-acoustic imaging, water sampling, plankton imaging, and multi-beam mapping.
This presentation will explore the Tethys LRAUV’s extensive capabilities, including its low-power transit mode and over-the-horizon, internet based remote control allowing users to launch the vehicles from shore and conduct sophisticated missions at remote locations, without a ship. This robust platform has demonstrated some remarkable mission capabilities, from analyzing environmental DNA to observing and tracking deep-sea animals to mapping the seafloor at centimeter-scale resolution. It is now commercially available for the global oceanographic research market, as well as for commercial and defense applications.
