A new underwater trials site designed to accelerate UK marine autonomy and ocean sensing has completed its first major test thanks to a live, multi-marine surface and subsea robotic platform demonstration. The
A new underwater trials site designed to accelerate UK marine autonomy and ocean sensing has completed its first major test thanks to a live, multi-marine surface and subsea robotic platform demonstration. The Smart Sound Connect Subsurface (SSCS) project, part of Smart Sound Plymouth, led by the University of Plymouth, with Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), saw platforms from ACUA Ocean, ecoSUB Robotics, Seaber and Sonardyne working together above and below the surface.
The all-day collaborative demonstration enabled visitors from business, science, defecnse and national bodies to view the potential of the three-year, USD$1.59 million (£1.2 million) SSCS project.
Delivered by Sonardyne, the SSCS’ infrastructure extends Smart Sound Plymouth and the Western Channel Observatory through a seabed node array for absolute positioning and communications, alongside other intelligent sensors within a highly characterized environment.
During the demonstration, both the University of Plymouth’s Seaber autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and an ecoSUB AUV navigated simultaneously using only the seabed node array.
At the surface, a PIONEER uncrewed surface vessel (USV) from Plymouth-based ACUA Ocean tracked and controlled an AUV from Southampton-based ecoSUB using a Sonardyne Ranger 2 Gyro USBL positioning system on the USV.
The USV also wirelessly harvested data from a permanently deployed Sonardyne
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