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| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Marine Robotics |
| Founded | July 2017 |
| Headquarters | , |
Key people |
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| Website | oceaninfinity |
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.
Ocean Infinity is based in Austin, Texas and Southampton, England, and was founded in July 2017. The company is led by CEO Oliver Plunkett and is a privately held company. [1] [2] Ocean Infinity was created after recognising the effectiveness of using marine robots in scale to acquire and analyse data from the oceans. [3]
Ocean Infinity operates two robotic fleets; the Armada fleet and the Infinity fleet. The Infinity fleet is made up of fourteen autonomous underwater vehicles that are currently operating in oceans globally and the Armada fleet will initially comprise fifteen robotic ships that will be operational by the end of 2020. The fleets are equipped with sensors and navigation technology and are capable of operating down to 6,000 meters depth. [4] [5] The company reported in May 2022 that the first of 23 Armada surface vessels had recently been launched in Vietnam. [6]
Ocean Infinity was involved in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in early 2018, deploying Seabed Constructor between January and May without success. [7] In November of the same year, Seabed Constructor located the wreck of Argentine submarine ARA San Juan, which had disappeared a year earlier. [8] At the end of December 2018, Ocean Infinity was contracted by the South Korean government to search for the wreck of the sunken bulk carrier ship Stellar Daisy, which sank in March 2017 in the South Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Uruguay. [9] On 17 February 2019, the company announced that it believed it had found the ship's wreck, [10] and soon afterwards retrieved the voyage data recorder. [11]
In addition to the high-profile wreck searches, Ocean Infinity has also undertaken data acquisition support for Total E&P, Shell Mauritania, Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, Exxon Mobil, NOAA and Petrobras. [12] [13] [14] [15] [16]
In early 2019, the wreck of Grande America was localized by Island Pride, which arrived 30 March and started inspecting the wreck using remotely operated underwater vehicles. [17] In July 2019, the company found the French Navy submarine Minerve, 50 years after its disappearance. [18] In 2020, Ocean Infinity also worked with Search INC to locate the battleship USS Nevada. [19]
Ocean Infinity has also provided technical expertise and equipment to locate Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance which sank 27 October 1915 after having been beset in ice of the Weddell Sea off Antarctica. The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust's project Endurance22 was successful on 5 March 2022.
An oil platform is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platforms will also have facilities to accommodate the workers, although it is also common to have a separate accommodation platform linked by bridge to the production platform. Most commonly, oil platforms engage in activities on the continental shelf, though they can also be used in lakes, inshore waters, and inland seas. Depending on the circumstances, the platform may be fixed to the ocean floor, consist of an artificial island, or float. In some arrangements the main facility may have storage facilities for the processed oil. Remote subsea wells may also be connected to a platform by flow lines and by umbilical connections. These sub-sea facilities may include one or more subsea wells or manifold centres for multiple wells.
Hydrographic survey is the science of measurement and description of features which affect maritime navigation, marine construction, dredging, offshore wind farms, offshore oil exploration and drilling and related activities. Surveys may also be conducted to determine the route of subsea cables such as telecommunications cables, cables associated with wind farms, and HVDC power cables. Strong emphasis is placed on soundings, shorelines, tides, currents, seabed and submerged obstructions that relate to the previously mentioned activities. The term hydrography is used synonymously to describe maritime cartography, which in the final stages of the hydrographic process uses the raw data collected through hydrographic survey into information usable by the end user.
A remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROUV) or remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is a free-swimming submersible craft used to perform underwater observation, inspection and physical tasks such as valve operations, hydraulic functions and other general tasks within the subsea oil and gas industry, military, scientific and other applications. ROVs can also carry tooling packages for undertaking specific tasks such as pull-in and connection of flexible flowlines and umbilicals, and component replacement. They are often used to visit wrecks at great depths beyond the capacities of submersibles for research purposes, such as the Titanic, amongst others.
A submersible is an underwater vehicle which needs to be transported and supported by a larger watercraft or platform. This distinguishes submersibles from submarines, which are self-supporting and capable of prolonged independent operation at sea.
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.
Minerve was a diesel–electric submarine in the French Navy, launched in 1961. The vessel was one of 11 of the Daphné class. In January 1968, Minerve was lost with all hands in bad weather while returning to her home port of Toulon.
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.
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.
Monitor National Marine Sanctuary is the site of the wreck of the USS Monitor, one of the most famous shipwrecks in U.S. history. It was designated as the country's first national marine sanctuary on February 5, 1975, and is one of only two of the seventeen national marine sanctuaries created to protect a cultural resource rather than a natural resource. The sanctuary comprises a column of water 1 nautical mile in diameter extending from the ocean’s surface to the seabed around the wreck of the American Civil War ironclad warship, which lies 16 nautical miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Average water depth in the sanctuary is 230 feet (70 m). Since it sank in 1862, Monitor has become an artificial reef attracting numerous fish species, including amberjack, black sea bass, oyster toadfish, and great barracuda.
ARA San Juan (S-42) was a TR-1700-class diesel-electric submarine in service with the Submarine Force of the Argentine Navy from 1985 to 2017. It was built in West Germany, entering service on 19 November 1985, and underwent a mid-life update from 2008 to 2013.
NOAAS Whiting, was an American survey ship that was in commission in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from 1970 to 2003. Previously, she had been in commission in the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey from 1963 to 1970 as USC&GS Whiting.
The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 led to a multinational search effort in Southeast Asia and the southern Indian Ocean that became the most expensive search in aviation history.
MV Stellar Daisy was a South Korean-owned very large ore carrier (VLOC) that sank on March 31, 2017 in the South Atlantic off the coast of Uruguay while on a voyage from Brazil to China. She was the largest ship, by a factor of nearly 2 on gross tonnage, to be lost at sea.
On 15 November 2017, the Argentine submarine ARA San Juan disappeared in the South Atlantic off the coast of Argentina while on a training exercise. After a search lasting 15 days, the Argentine Navy downgraded the operation from a rescue mission to a search for the submarine's wreck, implying they had given up hope of finding survivors among its crew of 44. It was the worst submarine disaster since the accident on Chinese submarine 361 in 2003, and the second worst peacetime naval disaster in Argentina after the 1949 sinking of the minesweeper ARA Fournier.
RV Petrel, or R/V Petrel, is a 76.45 m (250.8 ft) research vessel sailing under the UK flag and owned by the United States Navy and once owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. The ship is named after the petrel, a sea bird. The ship was completed by Brattvaag Skipsverft, Norway in 2003 as the deepwater offshore inspection vessel Seaway Petrel for service with Stolt Offshore. She was later renamed Acergy Petrel, then Seven Petrel with Subsea 7.
Seabed Constructor is a multipurpose offshore vessel owned by Swire Seabed and contracted since December 2016 to British-owned hydrographic survey company Ocean Infinity, based in Houston, Texas, United States. Previously known as Olympic Athene and originally Olympic Boa, the ship was launched in 2013 and is flagged in Norway. The ship is designed to conduct geophysical and geotechnical surveys of the seabed, support the construction or demolition of underwater structures, conduct trenching and excavation operations, and serve as a ROV platform for the company's autonomous underwater vehicles and unmanned surface vehicles. The ship is 114 metres (374 ft) in length, with a 22 metres (72 ft) beam, a gross tonnage of 7,883, and deadweight tonnage of 6,480 metric tons. Its maximum speed is 14.1 knots.
Grande America was a roll-on/roll-off cargo ship built by Fincantieri in 1997, owned and operated by Grimaldi Lines, a subsidiary of Grimaldi Group. It sank in the Bay of Biscay in March 2019.
Saildrone, Inc. is a United States company based in Alameda, California, that designs, manufacturers, and operates a fleet of unmanned/uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs), or ocean drones, known as "saildrones". The company was founded by engineer Richard Jenkins in 2012.
Limiting Factor, known as Bakunawa since its sale in 2022, is a crewed deep-submergence vehicle (DSV) manufactured by Triton Submarines and owned and operated since 2022 by Gabe Newell’s Inkfish ocean-exploration research organization. It currently holds the records for the deepest crewed dives in all five oceans. Limiting Factor was commissioned by Victor Vescovo for $37 million and operated by his marine research organization, Caladan Oceanic, between 2018-2022. It is commercially certified by DNV for dives to full ocean depth, and is operated by a pilot, with facilities for an observer.
Underwater exploration is the exploration of any underwater environment, either by direct observation by the explorer, or by remote observation and measurement under the direction of the investigators. Systematic, targeted exploration is the most effective method to increase understanding of the ocean and other underwater regions, so they can be effectively managed, conserved, regulated, and their resources discovered, accessed, and used. Less than 10% of the ocean has been mapped in any detail, less has been visually observed, and the total diversity of life and distribution of populations is similarly obscure.
