Exocetus says that their AUV carries more payload and is faster than competing gliders. They also report that it operates well in changing salinity conditions common along the coast. “But the main differentiator for users is its open architecture design and ease-of-use,” said Joe Turner, co-founder.
“The open approach is applied across the system to sensors, hardware, and software. This provides a tremendous advantage for research applications,” said Andy Roberts, Project Manager. For example, researchers can even put their own computer in the payload bay. Performance and other data are on a network available to the user for correlation to sensed data – especially helpful in acoustic work. “The open approach is important for researchers who may find better instruments or change the direction of their research,” continued Turner. “Our main objective with choosing the Greensea system is that it will give us the ability to add or change out scientific sensors without requiring a trip back to the lab to reconfigure hardware and software. Changing out sensors used to be a big deal, but Greensea makes it easy due to their native support for thousands of sensors,” said Joe Turner, Co-Founder, Exocetus Autonomous Systems.
“Ease of use is built into the entire design,” explained Roberts. “For example, ballasting is straightforward and forgiving. There is no need for a tank or measuring shots of weight within grams. Glider preparation is also less complicated compared to others including the graphical user interface (Greensea Workspace) for navigation and mission planning.”.
