UK government grant funding awarded for collaborative autonomy project using unmanned vessels

Advanced maritime autonomy developer Robosys Automation, supported by unmanned surface vehicle (USV) manufacturer ACUA Ocean and Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (OREC), have jointly secured grant funding through Innovate UK.

The funding is for a specialist project exploring collaborative autonomy in USVs and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) across maritime autonomous surface ship (MASS) operations.

The Collaborative Automations for Subsea Intervention (CASI) project led by Robosys Automation aims to address a growing market need for improving operation and maintenance (O&M) and inspections of offshore assets with smarter, zero-emission, collaborative USV-ROV technologies.

Robosys Automation will be delivering two work packages, which include multiple objective autonomous adaptive path optimisation, specifically focusing on weather routing, and fuel consumption optimisation for traditional fuels and hydrogen.

The second package is for the design of software architecture and simulation of collaborative autonomy between USVs and ROVs, and the development of software algorithms for station keeping and obstacle avoidance in uncharted offshore wind farms.

This feasibility study includes the software and algorithm design, and architecture required for the vessel to arrive on station safely and efficiently, maintain station and collaborate with, track, and autonomously follow an ROV.

The project will help the maritime autonomy sector to further advance dual-use operations such as surveying, monitoring of critical offshore and underwater infrastructure, offshore energy, and marine science, to increase productivity, profitability, safety, and sustainability through these novel technologies.

The route optimisation will increase the endurance of the vessel overcoming the impact of hydrogen’s low volumetric density. Other aspects of the project include engineering feasibility of the ROV’s launch and recovery systems (LARS), combined with the related impact on a vessel’s stability in these scenarios.

The project’s success will be defined through software architecture design and algorithms primarily lead by Robosys’ development team to deliver Multiple Objective Autonomous Adaptive Path Optimisation.

Additionally, ACUA Ocean will lead the design of a new LARS and ROV that will both be technically advanced and commercially feasible, which will feature enhanced vessel stability for full open ocean operations and launch and recovery of payloads in over four-metre significant wave heights.

OREC will develop the test and evaluation criteria for the LARS and conduct a Life Cycle Assessment.

The MASS Collaborative Autonomy Project will reveal its findings in the spring of 2025.