FEATURE: Autonomous marine robots sent out to explore and maintain equipment 17 Mar 2021
The world-famous Boaty McBoatface autonomous underwater vehicle It’s often been said that we know more about the surface of the Moon than we do of our own seabed.
The reason being that, the further down we go into the ocean, the more inhospitable it becomes, presenting key challenges for any technologies developed to explore it. It’s a GPS-denied environment, there is tremendous pressure and with the ocean being so vast it can take a long time to get there.
Aidan Thorn, business manager of the National Oceanography Centre’s Marine Robotics Innovation Centre, recalls: “When I first started at the NOC as an apprentice over 20 years ago we had just one autonomous underwater vehicle, Autosub. That vehicle didn’t have a very long range and so was heavily reliant on a ship to get it anywhere with deep water to explore. We now have 50 vehicles and we’re increasi