DriX, a smart design for USV.
DriX was created paying attention to making a radical new USV design fit for purpose.
Several attempts to design unmanned vessels with the aim of carrying out missions in Marine survey, Offshore & Energy, Naval Defence, failed because their creators didn’t pay enough attention to making a radical new USV design fit for purpose. Starting from the thought to make a machine, some people looked at regular boats (designed for sailors) and said: “let’s reduce the size, it is not going to carry a single person.”, so they replaced the cockpit with antennas, found a place where to attach some sensors and they said, here is our USV and it looks like a small boat.
This was clearly not the iXblue approach, and this resulted in an original shape, fit-for-purpose, which brings the following benefits:
Highly hydrodynamical shape
With a beam disproportionally narrow for a 7.7m LOA vessels, DriX it traverses water like a spearfish. Its aggressive bow has a shape which is elongated and rather vertical (than horizontal), it splits waves in two halves. When a wave is long and high, if at high speed, because of the force of the ballast pulling down strong, the vessel literally goes underwater and pitches up just enough to reemerge. Because the keel is vertically splitting a wave, it actually pulls itself up keeping the pitch effect to a minimum, because the water flows sideways and not via the deck. This has an effect on stability, precision, consumption and noise reduction.
Stability – No pitch, no Roll
Rolling is also reduced by the fact that the keel is thin, large and very long, so lateral water displacement takes a lot of force, this counteracting force reduces the ease with which a regular boat constantly rolls, and is augmented by the force of gravity pulling down from 2m below, the heavy gondola.
Precision in navigation
For the reasons outlined so far, and due to the fact that a very sophisticated autopilot incessantly steers the USV, DriX can follow a survey line with decimetre precision at constant speed.
Low consumption
Fuel saving by hydrodynamic design allows the USV to navigate for over one week with 250l of fuel.
Low engine noise
Low consumption means, low effort by the engine to produce thrust, hence, low RPM. The engine is actually very silent by itself, at low RPM, it makes very little noise. The hull material and the engine room design absorb noise vibrations. This is key for operations involving acoustic sensors.
No bubbles
If the payload is placed 2m below the water line, bubbles is a problem marine surveyor can consider as belonging to the past.
Autonomous navigation
The vessel is autonomous, missions are accomplished despite the presence of objects around, an obstacles avoidance system (OAS) is there and it works.
Real-time data quality control
From the mother boat, it is possible to access the survey computer via long range wifi so to monitor the quality of the data being acquired.
Flexible payload integration
The gondola is designed to be fit any type of sensor existing today, if a new custom design is needed, iXblue will make a bespoke gondola.
It is unmanned
No people onboard means none to feed, accommodate, pay, etc. This has a significant reduction in terms of cost compared to traditional survey boats costing several thousands of dollars per day to operate. No man, also means taking people away from the equation pertaining QHSE.
It comes with a deployment system
Finally, a deployment system is provided with DriX and the USV automatically docks inside it.
Summary
Thanks to the efficient shape and to its keel, the DriX can successfully conduct missions with unprecedented performance, unlike several other other USVs.
