SURVICE announced today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a patent for the ARGUS™ (Autonomous Remote Global Underwater Surveillance) system. The patent (U.S. Patent Number 8,417,451 B2) was awarded to John and William Hersey, inventors of the surveying system. John Hersey is currently the Team Leader of SURVICE’s Research and Technology Team.
The purpose of ARGUS™, which has been in operation and field testing since 2010, is to automate the acquisition and processing of depth, environmental, and meteorological data from coastal and inland waterways and provide the data to Government, commercial, academic, and other interested organizations. The autonomous onboard system (without the need for any crew intervention) continuously processes and transmits GPS position and single-beam sonar data from a growing network of commercial and recreational mobile marine platforms to supplement nautical charts, many of which have become outdated and inaccurate. This “crowdsourced” bathymetry (CSB) approach to data collection is an innovation that leverages existing infrastructure and a potentially unlimited workforce. The cost-sharing of data products results in low-cost bathymetry and other data and utilities that are valuable to many different interests. Since 2010, ARGUS™ has acquired more than 80 million soundings from a distributed fleet of vessels navigating U.S. and international waters.
