Safety

Water is not the natural element for humans. Low temperature, depth and currents expose workers to hazards that the best safety practices can only mitigate, but not completely eliminate. The risk is even greater in difficult environments such as lakes with unstable shorelines or contaminated basins in isolated and remote areas, etc,.
CatOne solves the problem at its source, eliminating the need for operators to enter the water or use boats.

 

Action repetivity and autonomy

CatOne is ideal for recurring, highly repetitive and long-lasting tasks.
The significant autonomies obtainable on batteries allow continuous operation without interruption (e.g. physiological pauses) either during the day or at night. Since the vessel is a fully-autonomous robot, it does not suffer performance degradation due to operator errors caused by boredom or fatigue.
The novel propulsion and guidance solution, the high overall system efficiency and the quality of the electrical components allow modular customization of a single session’s maximum duration (4-8 hours using batteries, further extendable using solar panels).
The complete automation and precision of the GPS satellite navigation system allows scheduling each work session and autonomous coverage of routes tens of kilometers in length, without requiring operator intervention. Areas of tens of hectares can be monitored per day. (1 hectare = 10 000 square metres)

 

Environmental compatibility

CatOne is a perfect solution, and often the only one, for soundings in nature and faunistic reserves and in ecologically protected areas.
The small size, the total absence of polluting emissions, silent, low speed running, giving negligible production of wake and waves, together with the absence of immersed propellers, ensures practically no disturbance to the local fauna or to lake bottoms.
The total absence of immersed moving parts or any underwater opening on the hulls also facilitates the application of any desired sterilization treatment, making this the ideal solution for the technical survey and monitoring of sterile reservoirs.

 

Simplicity of logistics

CatOne can be operated in waters characterized by the presence of algae formations or of shallow depth.
The absence of immersed propellers or other underwater protrusions minimizes the risk that the vessel might foul on floating or partially submerged algae, vegetation or other entrapping material (plastic bags etc.)
The vessel’s draft of a few centimeters allows it a high degree of agility in shallow waters, even if complicated by the presence of gravel spits or sandbars.
Its small size and light weight make it easy to handled and transported by a single operator. The entire system can be carried inside a station wagon, or disassembled into two elements which can be carried on the roof-rack of a car.
The assembly of the vessel and readying it for operation take only a few minutes.

 

Flexibility

Compatible with the relative limits of weight, equilibrium and available space, the CatOne vessels are able to accommodate and carry a wide range of sensors and devices. Suitably equipped, CatOne can be employed in a wide variety of operating environments, from hydro-geology to biochemistry, from military to environmental monitoring.

The modularity of the system allows rapid adaptation of the basic configuration to any specific customer requirement, both in terms¹ of new instrumentation and the performance and capacity of the robotic system.