ERDC develops MARV to repair damaged piers
The US Army Engineering Design and Research Centre (ERDC) has developed a USV called the Multifunctional Assessment Reconnaissance Vessel (MARV) to help repair damaged piers, it was announced on 20 June.
The MARV is a six-foot-long, three-foot wide vessel designed to travel with a four-man team for rapid deployment and assessment of pile-supported marine structures. The MARV can assess piers for structural damage or obstacles within 24 hours, a lengthy process that normally can take weeks.
The MARV can be operated from as far away as one mile and can be used for scanning both below and above the surface of the water.
Equipped with a Velodyne HDL-32E LIDAR, the MARV beams out 32 laser pulses in multiple directions to measure distances. These light pulses generate precise, three-dimensional data and software that translates information to a high-resolution graphic which can be seen on a computer screen.
MARV has a 12-megapixel Ricoh multifunctional camera for digital imagery. A third method for generating imagery is BlueView BV-5000 multi-beam sonar.
Global Positioning System (GPS) is used to accurately position the MARV along with a Greensea inertial navigation system. This system uses an accelerometer and gyroscope to increase the accuracy of GPS within two centimetres.
The MARV has undergone 18 months of rigorous testing by army and navy divers, much of it in the waters around Hawaii.
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