The morning of the 17th was reserved for the media demonstrations. To that end, several news teams joined us on board Bacamarte.

Throughout the demonstrations, the journalists had the chance to understand the end uses of our vehicles. These range from object detection, structure inspection and mapping. The Neptus command and control interface was also demonstrated, along with the sidescan and multi-beam sonar end products. The AUV image capturing capabilities were also demonstrated, as were the UAV real time video streaming capabilities.

The UAV team also used the demonstration flights for testing the GPS receivers.

In parallel with the demonstration, the Xtreme 2 AUV was used for T-REX testing. In these tests the vehicle was supposed to execute a yo-yo pattern CTD data collection. Unfortunately this did not happen, as the vehicle was going straight to the target depth, missing most of the data in between.

A Wavy drifter was deployed around 8 A.M, and was successfully recovered by the end of the morning. The drifter finished its longest mission to date. The submerged sail performed properly, and the drifter kept transmitting its position. The battery endurance presented itself as a surprise, exceeding 10 fold the expected value.

During the afternoon, the Noptilus 1 performed a mission without support from Bacamarte. The AUV was taken to a remote area on a navy inflatable boat, and operated from it. The location was selected by the Portuguese Hydrographic Institute, which intended to test the AUV
capabilities in mapping a known wreck. The whole operation was executed from the inflatable boat, and observed from Bacamarte.

The UAVs resumed their flights during the afternoon, continuing the GPS and PTU tests. Some T-REX experiments were also performed. One of these involved commanding the UAV to collect images from a point in the ground, by flying in circles above it.