 | |
| 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]
Summary of successful search missions that Ocean Infinity was involved:
| Ship/Submarine | Date sunk | Date discovered | Depth | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARA San Juan (S-42) | November 15, 2017 | November 17, 2018 | 920m | [7] |
| Stellar Daisy | March 31, 2017 | February 17, 2019 | 3461m | [8] |
| Minerve | January 27, 1968 | July 21, 2019 | 2350m | [9] [10] |
| USS Nevada (BB-36) | July 31, 1948 | May 11, 2020 | 4700m (15400 ft) | [11] |
| Endurance | November 21, 1915 | March 5, 2022 | 3000m | [12] [13] |
| USS Stewart (DD-224) | May 24, 1946 | August 1, 2024 | 1060m (3500 ft) | [14] [15] |
Ocean Infinity was involved in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in early 2018, deploying Seabed Constructor between January and May without success. [16] In November of the same year, Seabed Constructor located the wreck of Argentine submarine ARA San Juan, which had disappeared a year earlier. [17] 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. [18] On 17 February 2019, the company announced that it believed it had found the ship's wreck, [19] and soon afterwards retrieved the voyage data recorder. [20]
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. [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]
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. [26] In July 2019, the company found the French Navy submarine Minerve, 50 years after its disappearance. [27] In 2020, Ocean Infinity also worked with Search INC to locate the battleship USS Nevada. [11]
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. [12] [13]
In December 2024, it was reported that Ocean Infinity would resume the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 under a $70 million 'no find, no fee' agreement with the Malaysian government. [28]
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.
Mensun Bound is a British maritime archaeologist born in Stanley, Falkland Islands. He is best known as director of exploration for two expeditions to the Weddell Sea which led to the rediscovery of the Endurance, in which Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men sailed for the Antarctic on the 1914–1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The ship sank after being crushed by the ice on 21 November 1915. It was rediscovered by the Endurance22 expedition on 5 March 2022.
Fugro NV is a Dutch multinational public company headquartered in Leidschendam, Netherlands. The company is primarily a service company focused on geotechnical, survey and geoscience services, and is listed on Euronext Amsterdam. Mark Heine is Fugro's CEO and Chairman of the Board of Management, while Harrie L.J. Noy is Chairman of the Supervisory Board.
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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.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370/MAS370) was an international passenger flight operated by Malaysia Airlines that disappeared from radar on 8 March 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to its planned destination, Beijing Capital International Airport in China. The cause of its disappearance has not been determined. It is widely regarded as the greatest mystery in aviation history, and remains the single deadliest case of aircraft disappearance.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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