Enhanced Riverine Drifter Navy STTR FY2010.A Sol No.: Navy STTR FY2010.A Topic No.: N10A-T024 Topic Title: Enhanced Riverine Drifter Proposal No.: N10A-024-0468 Firm: Toyon Research Corp. 6800 Cortona Drive Goleta, California 93117-3021 Contact: Eric Sandoz Phone: (805) 968-6787 Web Site: www.toyon.com Abstract: The Navy has need of assessing the river environment including bathymetry, flow velocity profile, and navigational obstructions. While improvements in measurement fidelity and reduction in cost have come about by the use of multiple drifters, measurement quality is lost due to convergent drifter trajectories, and cost/risk remains high due to personnel effort required for deployment. An autonomous river measurement system capable of self deployment and of detecting and evading collisions with floating debris is desired. Toyon proposes to assess the feasibility of its proposed Wapter autonomous system (water-helicopter): a combination of a ducted fan hovering UAV coupled with a unique multi functional trimaran hull well-suited to stream measurement. Benefits: Toyon's Wapter system gives the greatest flexibility in deployment, can reach remote streams not accessible by amphibious ground vehicles or watercraft, and can get off of the water and away from debris more quickly than any other craft. Return