The collective urge to “get back to business” was palpable and affirmed by a bustling turnout; organizers reported a total attendance of more than 10,000 and 447 exhibitors from 70 countries.
These pages cannot do full justice to the impressive array of exciting technologies on show in London but here are a few of ON&T’s top picks.
LEADING-EDGE AUV
Kongsberg’s booth proved a big draw for visitors for the unveiling of HUGIN Edge, the latest addition to the HUGIN AUV family. At only 4 m in length, it is the smallest and lightest member of the HUGINs and notable for its unique low drag profile designed to give this midsize AUV the “edge” over other vehicles in its class.
HUGIN Edge has been engineered with full autonomy and remote operations in mind and can be delivered with a USV or uncrewed launch and recovery system. The AUV’s wet flooded carbon monocoque body and flexible payload bay hosts a side-scan sonar or (upgradeable) synthetic aperture sonar for ultra-high-resolution imagery and is depthrated to 1,000 m with an endurance of 24 hours @ 4 knots (top speed 5 knots).
In-mission adaptive autonomy allows HUGIN Edge to make realtime decisions and continuously adjust mission execution as more information about the surrounding environment is gathered by the sensors, ultimately allowing the AUV to self-optimize its performance and efficiency.
NEXT-GEN SMALL-CLASS UUV
Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) president of the Unmanned Systems, Duane Fotheringham was in town to field questions about the recently launched REMUS 300, an open architecture small-class UUV capable of diving to depths of 305 m. The team at HII gathered firsthand feedback from hundreds of REMUS 100 operators to help inform some of the critical design parameters of REMUS 300. The result is increased UUV payload flexibility and in-field utility.
Modular energy sections allow for field replacement of 1.5, 3.0 or 4.5 kWhour lithium-ion batteries, potentially extending mission endurance to up to 30 hours—impressive given its dimensions: 230 cm (L) x 19 cm (W) and weighing in at only 56 kg. Common applications for this highly portable UUV include mine countermeasures, hydrographic survey, rapid environmental assessment, search and recovery, and marine research. REMUS 300’s compact and efficient core electronics, advanced autonomy, and common operating system allow for interoperability with the entire REMUS family of systems and the growing HII ecosystem of unmanned craft—above and below the waterline.
SMART HULL CLEANING
The Greensea Systems team used Oi’s return to introduce delegates to Armach Robotics, a spin-off company looking to reshape the future of ship husbandry. By fusing autonomy software and intelligent marine robotics, Armach seeks to curb the onset of naval biofouling and provide shipowners with greater awareness of optimal hull conditions through reliable, cost-effective and scalable technology.
The business aims to leverage Greensea’s formidable expertise in advanced navigation, vehicle control, supervised autonomy, and human machine interfacing to offer a subscription-based robotic hull cleaning service. Central to this end-to-end grooming process is Armach’s manportable crawler, which, as a hull agnostic solution, uses nonmagnetic adhesion and coating-friendly tracks to navigate its path.
While there are several hull cleaning platforms already operational in the market, Armach’s solution is powered by Greensea’s open architecture software platform, OPENSEA, which directly informs the crawler’s most efficient and effective route to 100% coverage. Armach’s system features an intelligent brush system that adjusts the force needed to groom certain areas and surfaces, while the robot’s cameras and sensors monitor progress and record specific hull features to help optimize the efficiency of future cleaning cycles.
As always, there was plenty to sample waterside at ExCeL London. USVs, unsurprisingly, featured heavily. Visitors were keen to get a first-hand look at Fugro’s 12-m Blue Essence USV Orca, designed and built by UK-based unmanned systems specialist SEA-KIT International to serve a broad range of missions, including offshore inspection and hydrographic survey.
DOCKSIDE DEMOS
Among the other uncrewed craft demoed—which included L3Harris’ CWorker 7, Maritime Robotics’ Otter Pro, and OceanAlpha’s SL40, among others—there was a second Orca that demanded attention, a multipurpose USV designed by the Portugal-based CEIIA (Centre of Engineering and Product Development) to offer an adaptable, complete and cost-effective solution for inland, coast and offshore data acquisition. Capable of supporting payloads to 100 kg, this fully integrated 3.4-m USV boasts a top speed of 5 knots and is capable of 24-hour-long deployments. It is equipped with a 30-m winch and is governed by a proprietary mission control software that allows for fully autonomous operations, making this customizable unit a turnkey solution for bathymetry studies, surveillance and inspection missions, and water sampling campaigns.
MINI BUT MIGHTY
As modernity dictates, the trend for shrinking technologies was also a feature at Oi 2022. Seafloor Systems launched their 1.3-m, 31.8-kg Trident USV, a trimaran platform purpose-built for multibeam hydrographic surveys. With battery endurance of up to 4 hours at 2 knots and propelled by 2 brushless thrusters with weed guard, this highly portable USV squarely targets operators that prioritize rapid ease of deployment. As does GPASEABOTS’ SB100PRO, which was also available for in-booth inspection. Also weighing in at 31 kg, the 103-cm USV— available with side-scan sonar, thermal camera, and LiDAR—is another sound option for hydrographers on the move.
For investigation below the waterline, the team from Advanced Navigation put their new micro-AUV through its moves in an on-stand tank. Hydrus is a single-person-deployable, plug-and-play image-based survey solution supported by an in-built, cinema grade underwater camera. Still image resolution is 12 MP, with simultaneous 4k 60 fps video capture. Hydrus uses 3D coordinate mission plans to determine travel path, way points, and depth, and the INS is tightly coupled to the DVL for following mission trajectory, regulating vehicle speed and maintaining distance from seabed and other objects. The unit is depth rated to 3,000 m.
Rounding up this snapshot of this year’s Oceanology International, attendees got their first look at Valeport’s new Bathy2, due for commercial release later in 2022. Designed for surveyors that need bathymetric data for ROVs, underwear vehicles or drop structures, Bathy2 is a fully integrated sensor suite for deployment to 6,000 meters and uses state-of-the art sensors to generate sound velocity and density profiles for precision depth and height data. The Bathy2 also has an external pressure sensor input option for Digiquartz referencing and offers other useful parameters such as altitude, interfacing with Valeport’s VA500 altimeter or other popular third-party options.
If you have a new product, service, or technology that you would like to see profiled in ON&T’s monthly Check the Tech feature, get in touch at [email protected].
This story was originally featured in ON&T’s April 2022 issue. Click here to read more.
