Uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) designer, builder and operator HydroSurv Unmanned Survey is joining forces with Sonardyne to develop and demonstrate transformative seabed-to-shore technologies for the offshore wind industry.Through a collaborative project, HydroSurv’s REAV-40 USV will be paired with seafloor and vessel-mounted instruments from Sonardyne, alongside cloud-based services, to provide an end-to-end seabed-data-to-shore service. Key elements of the new project include a self-transiting USV, acoustic positioning of and data harvesting from seabed instruments, real-time gathering of geo-referenced current profile data and live relay of information to operatives onshore through secure cloud-based systems. The project will also demonstrate the ability to overcome potential navigational limitations working in and around wind farms.
The culmination of the project will be a series of demonstrations at an operational offshore wind farm site within the UK and the project is part-funded by Innovate UK through its Robotics for a Safer World: extension project.