Unmanned Systems Technology 013 | AutonomouStuff Lincoln MKZ | AI systems | Unmanned Underwater Vehicles | Cosworth AG2 UAV twin | AceCore Neo | Maintenance | IDEX 2017 Show report

49 UUVs | Insight Autosub 6000 and Autosub Long Range respectively. The latter of these has a range of 6000 km at 0.4 m/s and an endurance of up to six months. The 6000 Mk2 is intended to provide the UK science community with a ship- launched, deep-diving AUV. Scheduled to be built by 2018, it will measure 5.5 m long and weigh almost 2 tonnes. Operating from the RRS James Cook and RRS Discovery , it will conduct pre-programmed missions over 24 hours, exploiting sensor and navigation technologies including sonar and camera systems to create detailed maps of the seabed and establish the range of organisms living there. It will also have under-ice navigation facilities that, together with its 6000 m depth rating, will enable it to explore potentially 98% of the Arctic Ocean floor. The Long Range 1500’s depth rating has been reduced from 6000 to 1500 m in favour of greater buoyancy and a larger dry space to accommodate a battery pack 2.5 times larger than the original. This, according to the NOC, will provide enough energy for longer ranges, higher speeds and the use of more power-hungry sensors or navigation systems, making it a much more capable vehicle for missions that don’t require greater depth capabilities. Deep sea mining Thought to constitute a potential new gold rush, deep sea mining for minerals could be a large market for a range of unmanned underwater vehicles, from swimming ROVs and AUV exploration vehicles to very large bottom-dwelling remotely operated seafloor production tools (SPTs), which are tracked vehicles that combine existing technology from the offshore oil and gas sector with rock-cutting technologies used in land- based operations. Canadian company Nautilus Minerals is due to begin mining copper and gold in the Solwara 1 project off Papua New Guinea in 2018 using a set of three SPTs operated from a specialised support ship. Built by UK company Soil Machine Dynamics, the auxiliary cutter (AC), the bulk cutter (BC) and the collection machine (CM) excavate material by a continuous cutting process similar to that used by coal and other bulk continuous mining machines on land. The AC prepares the seabed for the other machines by creating flat, level ‘benches’ for them to work on, using a cutting head mounted on a pivoting boom for flexibility. Most of the cutting is done by the BC with its much larger cutting head. Both of these machines leave the cut material – which consists of sand, gravel and silt – on the seabed for the CM to pick up. This machine uses internal pumps to draw the material in as a seawater slurry, then pushes it through a flexible pipe to a riser and lifting system (RLS). The RLS takes the material up to the production support vessel, which separates it from the seawater and stores it in holds ready for transfer to a bulk carrier. Robotic fish farms While small ROVs such as Deep Trekker’s basketball-sized DTX2 are carving a growing niche for themselves in aquaculture, particularly fish farming, the future could belong to integrated systems of different unmanned vehicles that work together. One such project, Artifex, is being carried out by Norwegian company Sintef Ocean, with the aim of developing robotic technology that will enable daily and periodic inspection, maintenance and repair of fish farms to be controlled from ashore with no humans at the site. The concept is centred on a USV that serves as a carrier for an ROV for underwater work and a UAV for airborne inspections, the USV transporting the other vehicles from shore bases to work sites and between work sites. A key objective is to create a system that can operate in more severe conditions than are supported by current technologies and methods, keeping existing facilities in better repair while opening up more exposed sites. Artifex research is focused on four main areas – vehicle design and onboard equipment, autonomous systems and operator interaction, and air operations and underwater work. Plans call for the subsystems to be integrated into a prototype and validated on full-scale farms. All these missions still fit the classic ‘dull, dirty and dangerous’ paradigm long envisaged for unmanned systems of all kinds, and they are opening up areas of the Earth for exploitation that until now have been beyond human reach while also providing much more information on the effects that human activities are having on the planet. Unmanned Systems Technology | April/May 2017 The bulk cutter is the main producer of crushed mineral ore in Nautilus Minerals’ seabed mining system (Courtesy of Nautilus Minerals)