The Special Projects autonomous surface vessels have been designed for multi role applications. This one was designed to survey the entire lake area for depth and later sample the bottom chemistry using a custom sensor deployed on a winch.  The application required a vehicle which could drive continuously for 8 or more hours at a time covering the nearly 30 square km lake with tight line spacing.  In this mode it could be operated either fully autonomously with remote monitoring or optionally piloted where radio communication is not possible.  In either case the pilot is only required to monitor and in many cases only commands the vehicle twice in a day, at the start and end.
The second part of the requirement was for the boat to visit a set of predefined points on the lake stopping and holding the position while the on board operator controlled the sampling sensor and winch. The requirement for the application was the boat must maintain an absolute position within 10cm to prevent the sensor from dragging. This an example of the synergy between the operator and the ASV.  The operators task load is minimized by not having to control the boat and continuously adapt to changing conditions.  The operator simply clicks the next waypoint when ready and the boat repositions.