One of the major difficulties is determining a clear definition of what constitutes an AUV, as ROVs are increasingly given their own on-board power and levels of autonomy, particularly in MCM applications. At one extreme there are the autonomous vehicles used as sound source targets for military submarine exercises that are produced in considerable numbers, also large numbers of fibre-optic controlled MCM vehicles (e.g. 2,300 of one type) being delivered to the world's navies. At the other extreme, the military have large complex high cost AUVs programs with vehicles produced in small numbers for specific purposes. A parallel situation exists in the civil market where large numbers of small single-task units have been produced, but relatively small numbers of high specification, high cost deepwater survey vehicles. Another complicating factor is the difficulty in separating out the building of prototype AUVs as part of the process of technology research, development or indeed education (such as occurs in the military and in university and other research establishments) from those built for pure commercial motives. We can identify 401 AUVs having been built to date and we are aware of a further 47 currently on order. Over the period 2000-2007 build has averaged 45 each year. 156 of the total units are the very successful REMUS 100 vehicle which entered production in 2001. Half of existing of the AUVs produced to date are small vehicles of less than 50 kg in weight and accommodating a very restricted payload. By comparison large payload deepwater survey vehicles such as the HUGIN 3000 weigh in at 1,400 kg. For purposes of our forecasts we group AUVs into three: 'small' (<100 kg), 'medium' (101-1,000 kg) and 'large' (>1,000 kg). On this basis, the existing population is 78 large, 72 medium and 229 small. With a population of 169 vehicles, 'survey' forms the largest AUV application. However the majority of the 'survey' AUVs are small vehicles used by the military for MCM surveys and do not carry the large sensor payload associated with commercial deepwater surveys. In reality, the 'military' usage is therefore much greater than the 112 vehicles indicated above. With 109 vehicles, 'research' is a large application and research organizations are major players in the AUV business, both as end-users and also in the development of vehicles and systems. The 'inspection', 'work' and 'hybrid' groups, to date only have small populations and these are mainly associated with the commercial oil & gas sector where use of AUVs is still a small apart from specific areas such as oil &
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gas industry deepwater survey.
Market Prospects
A number of factors are now conspiring to increase the potential demand for AUVs and early adopters have seen instances of great success in some initial applications such as deepwater seabed survey. Much of what has been achieved to date is due to the interest shown by the military in autonomous vehicles in its drive to de-man the battle space by use of all types of autonomous vehicles from land-based ones to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). As in commercial terms AUVs are still a fairly 'recent' technology we have adopted a scenario process to our forecasts to develop 'High', 'Most Likely' and 'Low' views of the potential market over the decade. The key points emerging from this process are that the 'Most Likely' scenario suggests that a total of 903 AUVs will be required over the next decade, comprised of 285 large units, 348 medium and 270 small. This would result by the end of 2017 in a total spend on AUVs of $1.8 billion. The upside potential is however considerable. Our 'High Case' sce-
Marine Technology Reporter 23
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