| Review: |
Unmanned underwater vehicles could be considered to have their genesis in the self propelled Torpedo, perfected by Whithead as far back as 1868. However today unmanned marine vehicles (which includes surface vehicles) can provide economic work for commercial, naval and scientific projects. This book covers the broad field and has 49 contributors from Europe and the USA which are concentrated in 19 chapters. Following the first introductory chapter by the Editors, the first eleven chapters deal with the bulk of the field which consists of remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) which are not constantly supervised and monitored by a human operator. Two chapters follow on underwater vision and its use in navigation. Chapters 15-18 cover unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), and the final chapter covers underwater gliders. This is a winged buoyancy driven AUV designed to collect oceanographic data. |