Mark Burnett, Director at Seiche Group, shared, “This is a great opportunity to bring the companies together and share skills and resources, as well as enabling expansion to meet demand.”
Their USVs are renowned for their ability to carry a diverse range of sensors into extreme ocean environments, remaining at sea for months and covering thousands of miles without a mother ship.
“Such hostile environments require a level of skill and build perfectionism that is similar to the space industry,” Mark said. “We are proud of what AutoNaut has achieved since it started in 2013, and Seiche invested in 2016. Now, as the global USV market expands, we are looking to recruit the high-level skills that will enable us to ramp up production.”
AutoNaut’s recent achievements:
- A fleet of four of the 5 m USVs is being deployed by the Barbados Meteorological Service for hurricane forecasting, with two more in build.
- Another of the zero carbon 5m USVs, fitted with a Sonardyne USBL transceiver, completed a ‘first’ with the Scottish Association for Marine Science by going out to the Rockall Trough, collecting a years’ data from a sensor moored 1,800 m deep, transmitting those data ashore via satellite, and then going back to remotely recalibrate the bottom sensor.
- An earlier mission saw an AutoNaut with ADCP, wave sensor, PAM, CTD, and metocean sensors complete a 115-day mission on the UK continental shelf break, covering more than 4,000 nautical miles.
