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48 Oceanography In January, the UK’s National Environmental Research Council announced a £10 million, four-year programme to investigate the impact of climate change on the Arctic Ocean, in particular the effect of diminishing sea ice, in which it will use research vessels and UUVs from its National Marine Equipment Pool, including AUVs, as well as charter vessels from international partner institutions. Part of the broader £16 million Changing Arctic Ocean programme, this study will look at the effects of sea ice loss on creatures, plants and habitats and, as a result, on the UK in areas including climate change and animal migration plus knock-on effects on industries such as fishing and tourism. The Changing Arctic Ocean programme is among the efforts set to benefit from a £15 million investment in marine autonomous systems and sensors, a five-year development programme announced in April 2016 that is centred on two new AUVs under development by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) – the Autosub 6000 Mk2 and Autosub Long Range 1500, derived from the existing April/May 2017 | Unmanned Systems Technology sounder, cathodic protection probes, a magnetometer plus cable tracking and laser scanning systems. Having been through testing in the UK and Sweden, it is being prepared for its first commercial deployment, in which it will be used in survey and inspection projects in the oil and gas interconnector and offshore renewables sectors. Here it will support pre-engineering, construction support and condition monitoring for the life of the field concerned. The companies are also working on applications in the oceanographic and defence sectors. French marine research institute Ifremer has picked the ECA Group to develop an AUV to be rated down to 6000 m, ECA revealed in January. Among the vehicle’s planned capabilities are wide- area mapping with acoustic sensors and optical inspection of selected targets by hovering close to the seabed. The vehicle is to be developed under Ifremer’s new Cooperative Offshore Robotics Alliance (Coral), which is intended to facilitate joint projects with selected industrial partners, ECA being prominent among them. Other Coral stakeholders include Provence-Alpes- Côte-d’Azur Region and the European Union (Feder programme) which, along with Ifremer, are to provide funds. Ifremer is to drive the r&d, engineering, test and qualification efforts to foster innovation and expertise on a regional, national and European level, overseeing development of the vehicle, associated equipment and control software. “The system will deploy a full range of scientific sensors in modular packages, innovating in design optimisation, autonomy, payload volume and navigation capabilities,” according to Jan Opderbecke, head of Ifremer’s Underwater Systems Unit based in Toulon. “The AUV will facilitate producing accurately geo-referenced, wide-area, high-resolution and multi-parameter representations of deepwater marine environments.” Plans call for the vehicle to make its first dives in 2019. This new 6000 m rated AUV is to have sonar mapping and optical inspection capabilities (Courtesy of Ifremer) The Autosub 6000 and its shipboard launch arm (Courtesy of the National Oceanographic Centre)