Modularity

The Gavia is made up of several individual cylindrical modules that are assembled and locked together using the unique Gavia Quick Lock forming a single rigid pressure hull.

The splash-proof end plates of the modules are electrically connected using standard circular water resistant military connectors which transfer power, TCP and UDP control signals.

Each module is a stand-alone unit that can be operated outside of the vehicle for charging, data access, and diagnostics. External access to the internal vehicle network is provided by wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), global Iridium satellite link, and the acoustic, through-water, communication link. In addition a direct connection through a data cable is provided for fast post-mission data download.

Gavia's autonomous vehicle control software is uniquely organized in a distributed architecture modeled on the division of responsibilities among the hands of a manually controlled vessel. The composition of the Gavia Intelligent Artificial Crew varies with the modular configuration of the vehicle. Different crewmembers operate as separate independent processes communicating over the vehicle Ethernet bus using industry standard CORBA interfaces. Specialist crewmembers can be added to the crew to provide application specific data analysis capabilities for reactive vehicle control.

The modularity makes Gavia an ideal platform and starting point for various AUV applications, including mine hunting, marine research, surveying, surveillance, sensor development and AUV methodology research.

Benefits of Modularity

• Ease of transport and maintenance
• Highly portable
• Reconfigurable
• Field swappable batteries.
• Increased range with extra battery module
• Easy accommodation of new technologies
• Custom configurable with field swappable payload modules
• Reduced maintenance cost
• A wide selection of sensors available
• Low operating cost 
• Custom user payloads