UST034

78 D espite all the technologies and regulations for making petrochemical extraction and transportation as safe as possible, oil spills can still occur wherever crude oil or related hazardous materials are being handled. Oil spill response missions can be hazardous by nature, as they could put first responders at direct risk of exposure to harmful volatile organic compounds. They are also repetitive, as the skimmer boats at the heart of the operations – which remove the oil from the water’s surface – must work along a sweeping route over the affected area. To make this process safer and more cost-effective, Sea Machines Robotics has partnered with the Marine Spill Response Corporation (MSRC) under an award from the US Maritime Administration’s (MARAD’s) Maritime Environmental and Technical Assistance programme, to demonstrate its SM300 autonomy package aboard the MSRC’s skimming vessels. “Our CEO has a background in spill response, salvage and ocean rescue, so he founded Sea Machines to develop and integrate technologies such as marine autonomy that could aid the spill response market,” says Philip Bourque, director of business development at Sea Machines. Bourque explains that the seeds of the collaboration were sown in 2017, when Sea Machines first worked with the MSRC on a proof-of-concept demonstration vehicle, installing the former’s autonomy equipment on a 6.5 m boom-towing vessel. Autonomous systems are a natural fit for dealing with marine oil spills, as this USV shows. By Rory Jackson Slick operator October/November 2020 | Unmanned Systems Technology Sea Machines Robotics has installed its SM300 autonomy kit onto a skimmer boat owned by the MSRC for autonomous oil-spill response operations (Images courtesy of Sea Machines)