25 Sayri Arteaga Michaux, co-founder and CEO, and Meidi Garcia, co-founder and lead engineer for data and AI. “Christophe had huge previous experience and success developing software, but what he lacked was robotics engineering skill and how to apply software in that field,” Arteaga recounts. “The interview quickly turned into us talking about how we’d engineer this robot. Our ideas were exactly in-sync with what he wanted – he’d just lacked the precise terms or knowledge to start engineering it.” Niche work As the three developed the design, they came to better understand the needs and challenges of professionals working underwater, and they determined that a vast niche existed for something between ROVs operated via tether in shallow waters and AUVs working in the deep sea for weeks at a time. In particular, a wide range of industries operating in coastal waters – including marine research, infrastructure inspection, ports, shipping and construction – require regular visual inspection of their underwater assets. The current practice predominantly involves the use of divers or ROVs for visual examination and assessment. However, deploying divers carries inherent risks and tends to be slow, which can escalate the overall inspection cost. Additionally, while ROVs mitigate some risks, their movement is limited due to being tethered, and they require skilled operators to avoid getting entangled on other objects while efficiently gathering high-quality data. Furthermore, traditional torpedo-shaped AUVs, uOne | Dossier Uncrewed Systems Technology | February/March 2024 The uOne is being designed as a cost-effective, highly autonomous replacement for divers across underwater inspection applications (Images courtesy of uWare Robotics)
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