MARTA: an AUV for underwater cultural heritage

MARTA, acronym for MArine Robotic Tool for Archaeology is a small-sized Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) developed in the framework of the ARROWS project. The ARROWS project (start September 2012, end August 2015) is funded by the European Commission in the framework of the FP7 call ENV-2012, challenge 6.2-6, devoted to Development of advanced technologies and tools for mapping, diagnosing, excavating, and securing underwater and coastal archaeological sites. MARTA will operate in a heterogeneous team of vehicles with a common mission to perform and a distributed and shared world model updated based on non-synchronous information collected by each of the vehicles of the team. Each of the vehicles will be equipped with acoustic communication means in order to be able to communicate when submerged. The University of Florence is in charge for the design and construction of the MARTA AUV, according to specifications written in compliance with the requirements formulated by the Archaeological Advisory Group, including archaeologists both from inside and outside the ARROWS consortium. MARTA will be moderate in cost, with respect to commercially available AUVs, and light enough in order to be deployable by two people from a small boat. MARTA will operate at a maximum depth of 150m and, in addition to a pair of acoustic modems for inter-vehicular communication and USBL localization, it features two different payloads, i.e.: a pair of synchronised digital TV cameras with visible light as well as structured light (blue laser) illuminators; a Multibeam echo-sounder. The paper illustrates the vehicle concept and the use of on-board acoustic instrumentation for communication, localization, and sea-bottom imaging. Preliminary experimental data from the field are presented.