Autonomous Vessel

As a delivery partner of the Marine Business Technology Centre (MBTC), the University of Plymouth (UoP) will procure one unmanned surface vessel (USV) to deliver collaborative research, development and innovation activities with Devon-based SME companies. This asset will be a new collaborative platform for the university's academic and technical expertise in: marine sensing, survey, naval architecture, advanced materials, environmental assessment, marine physics, marine biology, navigation and cyber security.

As such, the USV will be the tool with which the UoP Specialist Technician can undertake sea trials and various collaborative validation and development activities for new products and services (e.g. marine monitoring instruments) with project beneficiaries. Key to the requirement is a defined interchangeable dry and wet payload. This will enable the university to offer defined measurement limits to accommodate hardware and allow for interchangeable payloads between trials. The degree of 'autonomy' the USV has must range from full remote piloting through to fully autonomous operation.

In addition, the USV will be capable of forming part of an autonomous 'system of systems', i.e. be able to interact and collaborate with other unmanned systems as part of a nonhomogeneous surface and sub-surface fleet.

This is a European Regional Funded project.

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