In 1995 the current generation of oceanographic field programs were fundamentally limited by too few measurements, taken too slowly, at too great a cost. A new approach to more economical access to the ocean was to use many small, low-cost AUVs operating from a network of moorings. Such an approach, dubbed "Autonomous Ocean Sampling Networks" was developed in a multi-institutional effort lead by MIT Sea Grant. The ONR (Office of Naval Research) funded project ($11.3 M over five years) was aimed at deploying Odyssey II AUVs, buoyancy-driven gliders, and drifters in the Labrador Sea during the winter of 1998. In addition Odyssey IIb AUVs were used by collaborating institutions to develop and demonstrate docking and autonomous power-transfer techniques: capabilities designed to permit long-endurance deployments of the vehicles. Team members included the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Scripps, the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington and Northeastern University. Additional deployments of the AOSN systems occurred in Monterey Bay in 1999 and 2000. NRaD, The U.S. Navy's Research and Development division is basing their Distributed Surveillance Sensor Network on AOSN.

One of the important results of the AOSN research was the development of acoustic modems for sub-sea communication with AUVs. By the last field deployments of AUVs in the year 2000, acoustic modem telemetry was a standard feature of AUV operations. These deployments used the acoustic modems primarily in a half-duplex mode, mostly due to the lack of software on the AUVs to receive commands and change behaviors. This software is still under development and preliminary tests have been positive.

With the perfection of full-duplex acoustic communications between AUVs and ship operators, anticipated during 2001, the first step towards multiple autonomous vehicle operations will be underway. This result will lead to the development of inter-AUV/ASC communications. Eventually this will lead to a network composed entirely of mobile autonomous vehicles. Utilizing GPS navigation and RF/Satellite communications the surface vehicles in such a network will act as a link to the underwater vehicles and allow the entire system to be monitored and/or controlled from ship or shore stations.

The ability to deploy, monitor, and control multiple autonomous vehicles will allow even greater spatial and temporal sampling for oceanographic research. Multiple AUVs can be used to deploy a larger sensor suite for comprehensive bottom surveys. New multi-static acoustic imaging techniques, dependent on multiple cooperating AUVs, promise to provide high resolution and non-invasive imaging through seafloor sediments. These are but some of the promising future applications envisioned for multiple autonomous vehicle operations.