Global Unmanned Surface Vehicle Market to Grow at a CAGR of Over 14% from 2017-2021

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Technavio’s latest report on the global unmanned surface vehicle (USV) market provides an analysis of the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook from 2017-2021. Technavio defines an emerging trend as a factor that has the potential to significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline.

Bharath Kanniappan, a lead analyst from Technavio, specializing in research on robotics sector, says, “Vendors capitalize on capabilities such as superior computing and communications along with sophisticated sensors and navigation systems to develop unmanned surface vehicles that can stay in the ocean for long durations without using fuel, manpower, and harming the environment.” 

Technavio analysts expect the global USV market to grow consistently at a CAGR of more than 14% over the forecast period. Increased demand for maritime systems that can collect information for organizations and governments in sectors such as defense and security, oil and gas, oceanography, and hydrography drives the demand for USVs. A major demand will come from the Americas, where the Department of Defense in the US is taking initiatives to improve the maritime defense operations with the help of USVs. 

While other marine systems lack the operational abilities, persistence, and the robustness to endure the turbulent environment in various water bodies, ASVs have the capability to endure and last for as high as 30 days. Thus, they can help in the collection of spatial and temporal data. 

“Australia has an enormous number of MPAs with the Great Barrier Reef as the largest, and most biologically and economically significant of MPAs. ASVs are expected to be employed for a cost-efficient management to manage efficiently and protect the Great Barrier,” according to Bharath. 

Collaboration between unmanned vehicles 

Vendors in the USV market are working on innovations, which can allow collaboration between different types of unmanned vehicles to attain efficiency in transportation, deployment, and support and recovery of unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs). 

As the use of unmanned marine systems becomes more rampant, vendors will increasingly focus on improving the interoperability between manned and unmanned vehicles as well as different unmanned vehicles. Vendors are working on R&D to introduce standardized software interfaces that can improve the communications and integration of disparate systems along with ensuring cost-effectiveness, reduction in power consumption, and agility in missions. 

Calibration of long-baseline positioning systems 

The main concept of using a USV as an aid for a long baseline (LBL) acoustic positioning system is to streamline and simplify the logistics involved with calibration and testing the system. This application was tested by EvaLogics that manufactures a USV known as Sonobot, which is a lightweight vehicle for hydrographic surveys. Apart from delivering bathymetric data, it also provides a real-time wireless connection to the station onshore. 

For LBL positioning, an acoustic transceiver was towed behind the Sonobot, and a wireless connection was configured between the transceiver and a PC running positioning software (SiNAPS).