| Industry | Marine technology |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2002 |
| Headquarters | Bishopstrow, Warminster, England |
| Parent | Thalassa Holdings Ltd |
| Website | autonomousroboticsltd |
Autonomous Robotics Ltd, previously GO Science Ltd, is a British company founded in 2002 to develop an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) with ocean-bottom seismometer (OBS) sensors. Since 2014 the company has been a subsidiary of Thalassa Holdings Ltd.
GO Science Ltd was founded in 2002 [1] in Bristol, UK by a former BAe director of Underwater Systems, [2] and a founder of the Las Iguanas restaurant chain, [3] to develop a "ring wing" autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). Initial funding was from the South West Regional Development Agency (SWRDA) in 2006. [4] In November 2008 ICON Corporate Finance [5] raised significant investment (19.4% [6] ) for GO Science from Kenda Capital, the manager of the Shell Technology Ventures Fund 1 (STVF) [7] with Kenda directors joining the board. The prototype vehicle was developed in the University of Bristol labs, then at Redhill Farm Business Park and later at Aztec West, outside Bristol. An office was opened at the SETsquared Business Acceleration Centre at the University of Bristol.
In September 2009 the company announced that it had won a £6m contract with an unnamed oil company. [8] This was later confirmed as Shell E&P, adding the challenge of a deepwater specification. Shell's Chief Scientist Geophysics stated that the concept was to be tested "in earnest" for a few months whilst recognising the cost and acknowledging that "we're happy to partner with others". [9] Shell provided the company with over £4 million of investment. [10] Subsequently GO Science announced it was under contract to "two very large companies". [11] In May 2012 the planned trials for Shell E&P consisted of a five vehicle trial in the Gulf of Mexico, USA, for the summer of 2012, with a larger trial of fifty vehicles in 2013. [12] Neither of these trials were undertaken.
Pressures on the company increased through 2012–13. STVF were looking critically at their investments, following a review of the portfolio companies by a senior Schlumberger executive in 2011. The GO Science accounts to the end of 2012 showed a loss of £0.3m. [13] In June 2013 the company applied for funding from the West of England Going for Growth campaign. [14] At the same time the company's commitments to Shell E&P, with regard to the planned trials, were slipping.
On 31 July 2013 GO Science Ltd was placed into administration at the request of STVF, due £2.5m with other creditors owed over £0.5m. Six of the thirteen staff were made redundant. However, ten potential buyers approached the administrators, BDO, and in September 2013 Thalassa Holdings Ltd agreed to pay £3.6m for the company. [15] At the close of 2013 the GO Science shareholders expected to receive Thalassa shares if "Go Science's principal customer contracts are re-activated." [16] Thalassa, which possesses expertise in OBS, has made the acquisition "on what appear to be extremely favourable terms" according to AimZine. [17] In 2014 it was revealed that Thalassa had paid rather less for GO Science, $2.9m, and registered the group in the British Virgin Islands. [18] Thalassa appointed a previous Managing Director of Saab Seaeye Ltd as CEO, the company was renamed Autonomous Robotics Ltd and relocated to Warminster, UK. [19]
In 2019, the company had seven employees. [20]
The initial markets investigated included military, environmental and exploration applications. In June 2008 the company committed to developing an application for seabed seismic sensors (Ocean Bottom Seismic, OBS) for oil and gas exploration. [21] A "swarm" of autonomous vehicles, as a self-deploying and -recovering sensor grid, offers potential efficiency savings over cables or populating a grid with sensors one-at-a-time by a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV). The ambition at this time was for the first production vehicles to be operational by 2010. [22] Thalassa have described this technology as having the "potential to have a massive impact on the way marine seismic data is collected". [23]
GO Science's RHyVAU (Ring Hydro Vessel Agent Under-liquid) was an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), a type of unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV).
The design was that of a "ring wing", a hydrofoil section rotated about the axis to form a toroid. Of fixed chord, the leading edge was also swept aft toward the top and bottom of the toroid. This form can generate lift in descending or ascending glide paths. With twin thrusters mounted inside the duct, the vehicle was very manoeuvrable in comparison to a torpedo type design, for a slight drag penalty. The first of a number of international patents was filed in October 2006. [24]
The prototype vehicle had an outside diameter of 533mm, 21" being a common torpedo size, 25 kg mass and a 1.1 kWh lithium polymer battery supplying two 2 kW thrusters and was capable of 8 knots. [25] Trials were conducted in enclosed waters around the UK and in the Netherlands. The production version was proposed to cost US$30–60,000 each, was designed to operate in depths in excess of 2,000 m [26] and "can organize itself into a "swarm" with up to 2,500 units in a coordinated autonomous group" [27] up to 100 km from the launch point. [28] As well as the powered version (called Contueor), the company considered glider versions (Indago), towed versions (Aspicere), and aerial versions (μRaptor). [29]
Autonomous Robotics have been working on a more conventionally shaped AUV for the OBS application, and presented a full scale model of the new vehicle in 2015. ARL predicts a tenfold improvement in the deployment and recovery rates over ROV placement, with the intention to use 3,500 nodes in a system, deploying for up to 60 days in up to 3,000m of water. [30]
iRobot Corporation is an American technology company that designs and builds consumer robots. It was founded in 1990 by three members of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab, who designed robots for space exploration and military defense. The company's products include a range of autonomous home vacuum cleaners (Roomba), floor moppers, and other autonomous cleaning devices.
An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is a robot that travels underwater without requiring continuous input from an operator. AUVs constitute part of a larger group of undersea systems known as unmanned underwater vehicles, a classification that includes non-autonomous remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) – controlled and powered from the surface by an operator/pilot via an umbilical or using remote control. In military applications an AUV is more often referred to as an unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV). Underwater gliders are a subclass of AUVs.
An underwater glider is a type of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that employs variable-buoyancy propulsion instead of traditional propellers or thrusters. It employs variable buoyancy in a similar way to a profiling float, but unlike a float, which can move only up and down, an underwater glider is fitted with hydrofoils that allow it to glide forward while descending through the water. At a certain depth, the glider switches to positive buoyancy to climb back up and forward, and the cycle is then repeated.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) is a private, non-profit oceanographic research center in Moss Landing, California. MBARI was founded in 1987 by David Packard, and is primarily funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Christopher Scholin serves as the institute's president and chief executive officer, managing a work force of approximately 220 scientists, engineers, and operations and administrative staff.
A mobile robot is an automatic machine that is capable of locomotion. Mobile robotics is usually considered to be a subfield of robotics and information engineering.
Unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV), also known as uncrewed underwater vehicles and underwater drones, are submersible vehicles that can operate underwater without a human occupant. These vehicles may be divided into two categories: remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROUVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). ROUVs are remotely controlled by a human operator. AUVs are automated and operate independently of direct human input.
Kongsberg Maritime (KM) is a Norwegian technology enterprise within the Kongsberg Gruppen (KOG). Kongsberg Maritime deliver systems for positioning, surveying, navigation, and automation to merchant vessels and offshore installations. Their most well known products exist within dynamic positioning systems, marine automation and surveillance systems, process automation, satellite navigation, and hydroacoustics.
Subsea technology involves fully submerged ocean equipment, operations, or applications, especially when some distance offshore, in deep ocean waters, or on the seabed. The term subsea is frequently used in connection with oceanography, marine or ocean engineering, ocean exploration, remotely operated vehicle (ROVs) autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), submarine communications or power cables, seafloor mineral mining, oil and gas, and offshore wind power.
Oceaneering International, Inc. is a subsea engineering and applied technology company based in Houston, Texas, U.S. that provides engineered services and hardware to customers who operate in marine, space, and other environments.
AUV - 150 is an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) being developed by Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI) scientists in Durgapur in the Indian state of West Bengal. The project is sponsored by the Ministry of Earth Sciences and has technical assistance from IIT-Kharagpur.
The Sentry is an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) made by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Sentry is designed to descend to depths of 6,000 metres (20,000 ft) and to carry a range of devices for taking samples, pictures and readings from the deep sea.
The Knifefish is an autonomous unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) under development by General Dynamics Mission Systems and Bluefin Robotics for the United States Navy. It is a propeller-driven minesweeping robot designed to replace the Navy's trained dolphins and sea lions after the retirement of the 50-year-old Marine Mammal Program in 2017. The Knifefish was first unveiled at a Navy exposition in April 2012, and was originally intended to operate in concert with the Navy's littoral combat ships (LCS) as part of a specialized counter-mine system.
JASCO Applied Sciences provides scientific consulting services and equipment related to underwater acoustics. JASCO operates from 7 international locations and provides services to the oil and gas, marine construction, energy, renewable energy, fisheries, maritime transport and defence sectors. The head office is located in Halifax, NS Canada. JASCO employs acousticians, bioacousticians, physicists, marine mammal scientists, engineers, technologists, and project managers.
The Bluefin-21 is an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) developed by Bluefin Robotics for defence, commercial or scientific use. It found its most famous use in April 2014 in the search for the wreckage of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
Bluefin Robotics is an American robotics company, headquartered in Quincy, Massachusetts, which specialises in the design and manufacture of military and civilian autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and related technology. The company was founded in 1997, and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Battelle Memorial Institute in 2005. Its products include the Bluefin-21 underwater search robot and its military derivative, the Knifefish minesweeping AUV, which entered service with the United States Navy in 2017. Bluefin was involved in the development of several advanced Navy projects, including the Black Pearl AUV and the Proteus optionally-manned submersible.
The Rainbowfish class bathyscaphe is a Chinese deep submergence vehicle under development in 2015 and originally scheduled to enter service in 2019, but has since been postponed after 2020.
Maya AUV is an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), developed by the Marine Instrumentation Division at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), India.
Ocean Infinity is a marine robotics company based in Austin, Texas, United States and Southampton, United Kingdom and was founded in 2017. The company uses robots to obtain information from the ocean and seabed.
Hadal ARV is a type of very little known unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) built in the People's Republic of China (PRC). ARV stands for Autonomous Remotely-controlled Vehicle, an idea pioneered in China by Shenyang Institute of Automation (SIA) of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and SIA is also the developer of Hadal ARV and its predecessor Arctic ARV, as well as Hadal 1 ARV, the successor of Hadal ARV. Hadal and its predecessor Arctic series ARVs are the Chinese counterparts of Nereus hybrid unmanned underwater vehicle, because just like Nereus hybrid UUV, these ARVs can operate both as an AUV or a ROUV.
Autonomous Benthic Explorer (ABE) was a pioneering autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) owned and operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. ABE was designed to perform wide-area seabed surveys at depths of up to 4500m (14,674ft) and completed 222 missions from 1996 until it was lost at sea in 2010. ABE pioneered the use of a relatively simple AUV to perform wide area surveys, identify points of interest, and “scout” for a more sophisticated manned vehicle or ROV.
