How Autonomous Vehicles are Enhancing Ocean Science

The use of autonomous vehicles (AUVs) can greatly increase the efficiency of science campaigns, reduce human impact and effort, and provide a more tractable expansion of ocean observing systems. This paper highlights a variety of autonomous vehicles and their contributions to specific science applications. We also explore ongoing development projects and the role autonomous systems will play in the future. Over the past decade, the operational domain of autonomous vehicles has expanded to higher complexity tasks with less power required to achieve them. Hundreds of autonomous vehicles are now available to the science community, and their growing ability to carry highly specific and complex payloads for longer durations is transforming how ocean scientists do research. This paper focuses on two broad areas where autonomous vehicles have provided significant value: time-series observations and ocean feature detection and observation.