The ALANIS USV: ALuminum Autonomous Navigator for Intelligent Sampling

This paper discusses the requirements, design, construction and preliminary trials of the ALuminum Autonomous Navigator for Intelligent Sampling (ALANIS), an Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) developed by the Autonomous robotic systems and control group of CNR-ISSIA Genova basically for coastal monitoring. In the context of increasing development of prototype USVs for research, military and civilian applications in the last fifteen years, the Scientific and Technological Park of Regione Liguria s.c.p.a. funded a feasibility study of an unmanned multipurpose vessel for water and sea floor monitoring with the goal of providing, through the development of a prototype vehicle, an overview of the USV emerging technology, its perspectives and open issues, to a pool of small medium enterprises (SMEs) led by San Giorgio SEIN, a company involved in design and manufacturing of naval sensors, instruments and automation systems. After a public tender, the project, started in March 2007, was carried out by a group of companies lead by a public research institute, CNR-ISSIA Genova, on the basis of its previous experience in the development and exploitation of unmanned marine vehicles, both ROVs (Remotely Operated Vehicles) and USVs. As far as the companies are concerned, Cantieri Mancini snc has been in charge of the design and construction of the prototype vessel, Green Project srl developed the onboard system for automatic steering and throttle, and Gem Elettronica srl supplied the navigation and communication package. As a consequence of constraints given by the lack of rules for operations at sea of unmanned vehicles, the result was a dual-use surface vehicle, i.e. both manned and unmanned, named ALANIS (ALuminum Autonomous Navigator for Intelligent Sampling).