EvoLogics is an innovative subsea technology company established in 2000, with headquarters in Berlin, Germany, and a US sales office in Yorktown, Virginia. Combining state-of-the-art engineering with bionic concepts, EvoLogics is an expert in underwater acoustic communication, positioning networks, smart robotics and sensor systems.
The compact Sonobot 5 uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) from EvoLogics has established itself as one of the company’s core products. Available since 2011, today the Sonobot vehicle offers a wide range of hardware options that cater to most missions.
The Sonobot 5 platform
The Sonobot was developed as a compact, easy-to-deploy USV for bathymetric surveys in inland and harbour waters. The vehicle’s designers aimed to bridge the gap between manual measurements with handheld tools and the use of large crewed or uncrewed vessels. The result is a user-friendly, streamlined survey platform with multiple configuration options to best-fit a particular data collection scenario.
Sonobot 5 is the current iteration of the vehicle. A stable twin-hull catamaran craft, it is foldable for convenient transportation and can be deployed by a single operator. The vehicle’s autopilot system enables waypoint-based navigation along a preprogrammed survey grid. A radio control unit provides the option for either manual operation or supervised autonomy, where the operator can override the autopilot as required.
A wireless shore station enables on-demand or real-time data acquisition during the mission, and the system can be fitted with various WLAN and cellular communication options, depending on the end user’s operational requirements.
The sonar options include a single-beam echosounder, a multibeam sonar, a sidescan sonar and a forward-looking sonar for various data acquisition needs. The vehicle is available with both over- and underwater cameras for monitoring and capturing visual data of the surveyed areas.
Advanced options include an AI-powered object recognition module – this configuration enables riverbed and seafloor sidescan sonar imaging enhanced with automatic detection of objects, and a collision-avoidance system with a stereo camera for better navigation around obstacles.
EvoLogics continues to advance the system’s hardware and software, with new configurations for the Sonobot platform in the pipeline for the upcoming year.
Novel applications of the Sonobot 5
Over the years, EvoLogics has explored novel applications for the Sonobot vehicle beyond its standard roles in hydrographic surveys and monitoring. Back in 2015, the team was preparing for a demonstration of an LBL (long-baseline) acoustic positioning system at a conference in Genoa, Italy. The team faced a challenge, common at fast-paced industry events: system deployment, calibration, testing and demonstration all had to be performed within two hours.
A typical LBL underwater acoustic positioning system uses an array of at least three seafloor-mounted transponders that form the system’s baseline, and before putting the system into operation, these baseline nodes must be carefully located in absolute coordinates. The calibration procedure involves moving a boat with an acoustic transceiver and a DGPS receiver over the deployed baseline array to test the acoustic connection to baseline transponders and accurately establish their positions on the seabed – a time- and effort-consuming procedure.
In preparation for the demonstration in Genoa, EvoLogics came up with the idea to use a remotely-controlled Sonobot 3, the generation of the platform at the time, to perform LBL calibration. An acoustic modem with a USBL (ultra-short baseline) antenna was towed behind the Sonobot, and, over the vehicle’s WLAN connection, successfully transmitted the established positions of LBL seabed nodes to the EvoLogics positioning software, SiNAPS, running onshore.
Using a USV within the infrastructure of an LBL positioning system proved a very promising application of the Sonobot. The team invested further efforts into hardware integration of an underwater acoustic modem with the Sonobot platform, and into automating acoustic communication tasks with the Sonobot’s autopilot functionality.
In 2016/17, the team designed and built a prototype Sonobot 3 with a USBL modem, integrated into a retractable submergible pod of the vehicle. This prototype aimed to explore new possibilities of combining the USV’s autonomy and mobility with applications that require both an acoustic link to underwater assets and a wireless connection to the onshore control station.
2017 also saw the EvoLogics trials of the bionic Manta Ray robots, developed by EvoLogics within Germany’s state-funded BOSS project framework. In a lake near Mockrehna, Germany, the team deployed three Manta Ray unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), each equipped with an acoustic USBL modem, and ran test missions of the robots acting in a cooperative swarm.
The Manta Rays were set to submerge and start moving in one direction as a formation, whereas the Sonobot 3 with USBL was programmed to automatically follow the Manta Rays by tracking their positions over the acoustic link. The Sonobot exchanged positioning data with the Manta Rays and transferred it to the onshore station over WLAN. Fusing the acoustic positioning data with the Sonobot’s GNSS positions delivered positions of the UUVs in absolute coordinates.
The initial Sonobot 3 + USBL prototype did not see a commercial release, and the platform’s development direction went towards a complete design overhaul that resulted in today’s successful Sonobot 5.
Sonobot 5 with USBL
The lessons learned from the integration of the USV with a USBL modem were not shelved indefinitely, and in 2024, EvoLogics is revisiting the Sonobot + USBL concept.
A new Sonobot 5 prototype with a USBL antenna was recently built by the robotics team. It features a streamlined moulded USBL modem, fitted on a motorized arm that lifts and submerges the USBL unit, controlled by the vehicle’s onboard software.
The team foresees several target applications for the Sonobot 5 USBL configuration. For example, EvoLogics’ recently introduced Diver Navigation System is currently available with a USBL buoy as a stationary surface node for linking the diving team to the shore. The Sonobot with a USBL antenna will make this setup mobile, as the vehicle can follow a team of divers and make it possible to move between areas of interest without the need to manually reposition and redeploy the surface node.
Another application for the Sonobot + USBL is providing an autonomous mobile surface link to data-collecting underwater vehicles, such as the EvoLogics Quadroin AUVs, moving along the target areas at greater depths.
EvoLogics is dedicated to further optimizing underwater operations with integrated systems that offer a synergy of technologies. The functional prototypes of Sonobot 5 + USBL are to undergo extensive testing over a series of field trials, and the system is set to enter the market in 2025.