Teledyne Gavia, manufacturer of the Gavia autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), has completed trials of the AUV self-compensating magnetometer from Ocean Floor Geophysics (OFG).
Following¸the integration and field trials in Iceland of the OFG self-compensating magnetometer (SCM) on the Teledyne Gavia AUV the sensor system is now being offered as part of the suite of tools available to Gavia users.
Matthew Kowalczyk , CEO of OFG, said: “There are many magnetometer technologies available on the market. The requirement that drove the development of the SCM system was to remove the need to tow a magnetometer, which is problematic in many AUV operations. The SCM can be integrated inside the body of the AUV or simply strapped to the hull of the AUV and compensates for the magnetic signature and motor currents of the AUV. This results in a system that does not have to be mounted on a pole, does not have to be towed behind the AUV or put into a de-gaussed hull section. ”
Equipping the Gavia with the OFG SCM system for AUVs enables the collection of real-time compensated data that removes the magnetic signature of the AUV ensuring that the ambient field is being measured rather than the AUV itself.
Combining the compensated three-vector magnetic data of the SCM with other sensors such as side scan imagery, bathymetric survey data, sub-bottom profiler data, and water chemistry sensors further increases the value of AUV data.