Low cost Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) development for coastal study

One of the major limitations of traditional bathymetric and side scan surveys is the very shallow waters, i.e. less than 2 m depth, where oceanographic or coastal ships have no or little accessibility. The use of Unmanned or Uncrewed Surface Vehicles (USVs) may solve this handicap. Our research group, at the University of Alicante, has developed a low-cost USV platform to be used in coastal, river and lake studies. The main advantage obtained is an affordable and easily adaptable USV, not dependent on external developers, and configurable on-demand. In the process of testing the platform, the USV was deployed in different study sites such as spring ponds and a sea cliff. The USV is based on an Arduino mainboard as a controller for the Electronic Speed Control (ESC) of the thrusters, the GPS, and the antennas for sending signals. It can be equipped with various sensors, and two video cameras, one underwater, facing down, and another above the water, facing to the front. The ship was designed to be easily transported and operated in areas with limited access, such as densely vegetated lake margins. After different development phases, the present model was equipped with a Lowrance Elite FS 3-in-1 single-beam, down-scan and side-scan sonar GPS plotter. During testing, the side-scan sonar provided detailed seabed and lateral underwater vertical sea-cliff images, uncovering a metric-blocky seabed with karstic features such as caves and poor-visibility ponds. The system shows effectiveness in collecting high-resolution bathymetric data, even in challenging environments. The key advantage of the system lies in its low cost, adaptability, and ability to collect data in areas that would otherwise require expensive equipment. This research highlights the potential of USVs for advancing aquatic and coastal studies, offering a scalable solution for both academic and applied environmental research. Our system is in continuous development and soon will be updated with new sonar transductors.

Funded by projects GVA-THINKINAZUL/2021/039, and PID2020-114381GB-I00.