THESAURUS: techniques for underwater exploration and archeology through swarms of autonomous vehicles

The THESAURUS project (2011-2013) is financed by Regione Toscana (Italy) in the framework of the "FAS" program 2007-2013 under Deliberation CIPE (Italian government) 166/2007. The overall goal of THESAURUS project is to develop multidisciplinary methodologies and technologies to detect, catalogue and document underwater artifacts and wreckage with archaeological and ethno-anthropological value. In particular, specially designed Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) will be used to systematically explore the sea floor in a co-operative way, by collecting and analyzing in real time heterogeneous data from acoustic, optical and magnetic sensors with the aim of promptly detecting objects of interest. Data recorded from AUVs missions will also be analyzed and integrated off-line, by building large-scale sea-floor maps and 3D reconstructions for granting virtual access to underwater sites.