NUWC officials announced a plan last Thursday to contract with OceanServer to refurbish and upgrade a NUWC-owned Iver2. The value of the upcoming contract has yet to be negotiated.
The OceanServer Iver2 UUV is a commercially developed family of low-UUVs for sensor development, general survey work, subsurface security, research, and environmental monitoring.
The Iver2 UUV is the only commercially available platform that is single-man portable for launch and recovery from small boats without supporting equipment, Navy officials say. The UUV has suitable sensors and controller capabilities for NUWC research work.
OceanServer engineers designed the Iver2 to enable users to launch the UUV easily from small boats, docks, or shorelines. The UUVs feature simple point-and-click mission planning. These UUVs weigh 40 to 50 pounds and can be hand-carried to the water like a suitcase.
The Iver family of UUVs are designed for coastal data collection, and one operator can run several vehicles, including launch and retrieval, company officials say. The UUV's cost is as low as $50,000.
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The Iver2 is 50 to 70 inches long, is 5.8 inches in diameter, and weighs 45 to 65 pounds in a standard configuration. It can dive to depths of 330 feet, operate at speeds of 2.5 knots for eight to 14 hours between battery charges, and can travel at one to four knots.
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The UUV navigates with surface GPS, bottom tracking, or dead reckoning with compass, depth sensors, and vehicle speed tables. Available sensors include a side-scan sonar, interferometric co-registered sonar, Doppler velocity log, altimeter, conductivity and temperature sensor, satellite communications, handheld remote controller, still-image and video camera, acoustic pinger, and magnetometer.
For more information contact OceanServer online at www.iver-auv.com, or the Naval Undersea Warfare Center at www.navy.mil/local/nuwc.
