From 6^th to 29^th of July, the exercise REP Atlantic 15 will take place in Azores. Organized by LSTS and the Portuguese Navy this exercise aims to push further our capacity to operate and control a network of underwater, surface and aerial autonomous vehicles and systems.

As you may find in REP 15 webpage (rep15.lsts.pt), this exercise will be divided in 3 phases:

During phase I of this exercises, operations will take place on shore and near shore, to ensure scientific and cultural alignment with various groups working on REP15. On the Yellow Zone OMST/FEUP will execute military exercises aligned with the interests of Portuguese Navy, while on the Green Zone all the other teams will meet to start the test with all vehicles and systems.

In phase II, operations will be on board the NRP Almirante Gago Coutinho, offshore off of Horta. Driven by engineering goals, we hope to use our AUV’s, UAV’s and drifters to collect data which will allow the characterization of wakes of cetaceans and sample the transect along S. Mateus and Azores banks.

For phase III we will go back to near shore operations. Here our objective will be to map shallow vents in Faial/Pico channel, operating several vehicles simultaneously.

To keep up with the operations follow the daily update on: rep15.lsts.pt/blog

You can also see the Portuguese Navy press release here.