UACE2017 Proceedings: Deficiencies in AUV mission planning examplified by an UXO survey

Session:
Underwater Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) Detection and Remediation
Paper:
Deficiencies in AUV mission planning examplified by an UXO survey
Author(s):
Hauke Voss
Abstract:
At the end of WW II hundreds of thousands of tons of unused ammunition and explosive ordnances were just skipped over the railing of some fishing boats to get rid of them.\nOut of sight, out of mind was the motto, and nobody cared about the consequences. That was daily practice up to the late sixties. All together there are about 1.6 million tons of UXOs in German littoral waters.\nIn recent years the AUV team of the WTD 71 supported the Waterways and Shipping Directorate in searching UXOs in littoral waters. The variety of UXO reaches from boxes with ammunition for assault rifles up to torpedoes and cruise missiles of type V-1.\n\nDuring these AUV surveys it turned out, that due to the environment, the sonar performance varies a lot over space and time and this leads to holidays in the coverage of the surveyed area.\nBut modern SAS sonars offer the capability to overcome these deficiencies by estimating the actual sonar. If the image quality decreases, the line spacing between two consecutive tracks will be adapted autonomously. With this technique the coverage of the area is always 100%.
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