Our next generation high-speed marine survey USV is now ready to rent

We have opened the rental book on our next-generation Uncrewed Surface Vehicle (USV) for marine data acquisition to IHO s-44 standards today. Ready for surveying this summer, the ‘Autonomous Surveyor’ USV has already been put through its paces with two days of intensive demonstrations at the German Hydrographic Society (DHyG) organised Hydrographentag 2022 conference in Bremerhaven earlier this month.

At 12 ft long, with a draft of just seven inches and a clean, powerful all-electric motor and propulsion system – the ‘Autonomous Surveyor’ performance specs are way beyond any current platform with the ability to conduct hydrographic survey to s-44 exclusive order standards, even under the harshest conditions and strong currents. In comparison to the process of mobilising a crewed and expert staffed survey vessel (which may not always be ready to go), the speed and operational flexibility of the USV can significantly reduce the costs of marine data acquisition and allow for higher utilisation.

“We are confident that our new turnkey survey solution will deliver immediate, tangible time and cost savings but looking further ahead, we believe that the application of fast, flexible autonomous vehicles will lower the cost per data package to where we can conduct surveys without a client commission, and that has the potential to transform how end-users look at buying and applying marine data,” explains Sören Themann, CEO, Subsea Europe Services.

Subsea Europe Services expects the ‘Autonomous Surveyor’ USV to enable significant reductions in Operations & Maintenance (O&M) costs for offshore oil & gas fields and wind farms, at first due to its unmatched ease of deployment and transit speeds.

Autonomy upgrades and new hydroacoustic technologies will unlock a new phase of efficiencies over the next few years. Forthcoming multibeam systems will allow high-precision data to be collected at speeds in the region of 16 knots while advances in AI will allow the ‘Autonomous Surveyor’ USV to adjust its own survey plan according to the real-time data it receives from the hydroacoustic and positioning systems.

The cost per data package can be reduced further still when using a ‘swarm’ of USVs like the ‘Autonomous Surveyor’. This approach has been successfully demonstrated in hydrographic USV ‘swarms’ exercises, showing that synchronized unmanned platforms can survey an area of the seafloor many times faster than a single manned platform.

“Speed is a key factor in optimising marine surveys and providing more value to the end-customer,” said Daniel Esser, Managing Director of Nicola Offshore, which will be one of the first survey companies to augment its provision of survey services with ‘Autonomous Surveyor’.

“As an offshore specialist with our own high-speed survey vessels, we are very keen to see how this new USV can help us deliver more value for our clients and potentially offer new ways to work which could make it optimal to adopt lower-cost, more accessible marine data-as-a-service models in the future,” adds Daniel.