Robotics is one of the specialist fields researched at ENSTA Bretagne. The algorithms developed are used in a wide range of robots : terrestrial, submarine or marine.
The autonomous sailing boat VAIMOS (Voilier Autonome Instrumenté de Mesures Océanographiques de Surface) or (Autonomous Sailing Boat With Embedded Instrumentation For Ocean Surface Measurements) has completed its first, long, completely autonomous voyage (100 nautical miles) between Brest and Douarnenez . It is an Ifremer/ENSTA Bretagne/LPO* project.

The objective of this project and partnership of ENSTA Bretagne, Ifremer and the Laboratoire de Physique des Océans (LPO), was to complete low cost sea observations and measurements using wind and solar power, which would complement the measurement systems currently used. In fact, VAIMOS is programmed to autonomously navigate a zone in a grid pattern whilst completing, thanks to its sensors, different types of measurements (temperature; salinity, chlorophyll and turbidity) at the water surface (first five centimeters) and at a depth of one meter.

Photos by Ifremer/Patrick Rousseaux

The autonomous sailing boat VAIMOS was designed by a team led by Olivier Ménage, an engineer at Ifremer, as part of his training program with ENSTA Bretagne, thanks to a group project involving the Laboratoire de Physique des Océans (LPO), the robotics team from ENSTA Bretagne and the Recherche at Développements Technologiques2, Electronique Informatique et Mesures In Situ Service (RDT/EIM) from Ifremer.
• The Laboratoire de Physique des Océans (LPO) is a Unité Mixte de Recherche supervised by the CNRS, Ifremer, the IRD and the Université de Bretagne Occidentale (UBO).