Unmanned Surface Vehicles as Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Tools

The monitoring of coastal and estuarine waters is hampered by the spatial and temporal restrictions inherent in gathering discrete samples and transporting them to a laboratory for testing. The development of in situ instrumentation now makes possible the collection of real-time data, and with the incorporation of remotely operated vehicles a much greater data density on both a temporal and spatial scale is achieved. Unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) are finding a niche in coastal and estuarine systems as a tool for rapid and cost effective deployment platforms. In this paper we will discuss an USV developed at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg's Environmental Science and Policy department