Agile design of low-cost autonomous underwater vehicles

The capital cost of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) is still prohibitive for wide spread mass adoption. To address this, the ecoSUB programme is developing small low-cost reusable AUVs designed to minimize platform cost while acquiring measurements of essential physical and biogeochemistry ocean variables for scientific or industrial applications. This paper describes: the agile design methodology adopted for the ecoSUBμ5 development, presents results from initial trials and reflects on the advantages and disadvantages of utilising iterative development when compared to a more conventional waterfall design process.