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Underwater robotics, aquaculture monitoring, and subsea inspection are increasingly driven by AI and machine vision, but most systems still rely on imaging hardware that was never designed for operation in water. We’ll walk through a comparative optical study showing how common subsea camera architectures perform — from flat and dome ports to corrector optics — and contrast those with purpose-built wet lens designs. The takeaway is not just better images are possible, but more reliable perception, lower downstream compute requirements, and better real-world AI performance are possible even in challenging underwater environments.
Underwater imaging often relies on adapting terrestrial camera lenses for subsea use through flat or domed optical ports. While convenient and cost-effective, these configurations introduce optical compromises due to refractive index mismatches at the air-glass-water interface and lens designs optimized for in-air use. This talk presents a comparative performance analysis of several underwater port configurations, including flat ports, hemispherical domes, Ivanoff-Rebikoff correctors, and a multi-element custom "wet" port, alongside a fully customized underwater lens system explicitly designed for direct operation in seawater.
Optical metrics, including modulation transfer function (MTF), lateral chromatic aberration, field of view (FOV), and image simulation fidelity, are evaluated. Results show that terrestrial lenses with port adaptors suffer significant degradation in image quality, while Ivanoff-Rebikoff correctors recover resolution but leave residual chromatic and geometric distortions. The Optopax custom port further improves performance, while the fully customized underwater lens surpasses all configurations, delivering superior MTF, complete chromatic correction, and field preservation, along with form factor flexibility for integration into space-constrained platforms.
Simulated Siemens star charts and real-world scenes demonstrate significantly enhanced edge definition, spatial detail, and color accuracy with both the custom port and the bespoke wet lens. By eliminating the optical discontinuities at air-glass interfaces and leveraging seawater as an active optical medium, the fully customized design represents a new design strategy in subsea optics, enabling high-fidelity imaging for underwater robotics, aquaculture monitoring, and AI-enhanced marine vision applications.
A revolution in offshore survey and inspection is accelerating. Autonomous systems, long-promised to replace crewed survey vessels, and their cost, are reaching a level of maturity where this reality is now within sight.
However, challenges remain to fully decouple from crewed vessels. Today, most AUVs still need to be launched and recovered from a crewed vessel. These exquisite systems command a high day-rate and haven't repeatably proven that they reduce enough ship days-at-sea to justify the cost.
Ulysses is working to address these challenges in two ways: by building the lowest-cost platforms in their class and the ability to autonomously launch-and-recover multiple systems from a single uncrewed vessel. Through this approach, Ulysses will achieve a step-change, unlocking a truly cost-effective approach to persistent data collection and monitoring of subsea assets.
Operators in the renewable energy and oil and gas industries rely upon Controlled Flow Excavation (CFE) technology to support complex scopes – with the triad of ever-greater performance, efficiency and environmental impact driving continual development.
With more than 640 successful CFE projects to our name worldwide, James Fisher has over 25 years of practical experience in safe, efficient, non-contact seabed intervention. James Fisher introduces JetFlow 100 as the next generation of CFE technology, designed to overcome increasingly challenging soil conditions while maintaining efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
JetFlow 100 is versatile, with a compact footprint and high excavation performance enabling a variety of inspection, maintenance, repair, and commissioning and decommissioning activities across the oil and gas and renewable energy industries. Uses include both pre- and post-installation trenching of pipelines, umbilicals, and subsea infrastructure, or seabed deburial to support structure inspection or decommissioning activities.
JetFlow 100 is a step change in subsea excavation capability. By significantly increasing flow power and jetting efficiency, the system enables effective excavation in stiffer soils and clays—conditions where conventional CFE tools have historically struggled. This optimal balance between mass flow rate and velocity is achieved without needing to add large, high-pressure jetting spreads, thereby reducing vessel deck space requirements and contributing to lower overall project costs.
James Fisher has combined the key advantages of non-contact excavation with the capability to operate across a wide range of soil strengths – including clays up to ~100 kPa - in standard configuration.
This ensures minimal risk to subsea assets while delivering consistent, repeatable trenching performance, and expands the applicability of CFE methods into projects that would traditionally require more complex, resource-intensive solutions.
The system has undergone successful testing in Aberdeen, UK, demonstrating stability and performance across a range of operating conditions without compromising tool integrity. These results validate the design philosophy of enhancing excavation power while maintaining operational simplicity and reliability, with JetFlow 100 now available to customers throughout the Americas.
This paper will present the development journey of JetFlow 100, including design innovations, testing and simulation results, and its potential to re-establish CFE as a preferred methodology in subsea project planning. The discussion will also explore how this technology can unlock efficiencies in future offshore operations by reducing cost, complexity, and environmental impact, both in North American waters and beyond.
James Fisher is running an advanced simulation programme to de-risk and optimise the design of our CFE tools such as the JetFlow 100, and to demonstrate their effectiveness. We are investing in sophisticated simulation tools and developing cutting-edge simulation techniques to perform simulations and ensure simulation results are representative of real life.
With rigorous simulations and testing underway throughout the year, additional data will be shared at Underwater Intervention in December 2026.
Autonomous subsea vehicles are evolving beyond discrete mission tools into integrated operational systems. Among the most promising developments is the emergence of port‑launched, long‑range unmanned underwater vehicles (LUUVs) designed to deliver persistent, lower‑logistics subsea survey and infrastructure awareness without reliance on vessel‑intensive operations.
This presentation explores how advances in vehicle architecture, endurance, navigation, and onboard edge processing are enabling a new operational model for autonomous survey. By exploiting data at the point of collection and integrating persistent data workflows, these systems reduce time to insight while expanding coverage and operational flexibility.
Topics include the design considerations of long‑range autonomous platforms, navigation and sensing strategies, onboard data exploitation, and how repeatable autonomous missions create compounding value through continuous infrastructure awareness. The session will also examine representative operational concepts—ranging from completed activities to near‑term deployments—to illustrate how port‑launched autonomy can support scalable survey operations across offshore and coastal domains.
Ultimately, the presentation positions autonomous UUVs not as standalone vehicles, but as system‑level enablers—reducing logistics, increasing persistence, and making subsea survey and monitoring more economically and operationally practical for a broader range of users.
The highest-risk portion of subsea cable infrastructure receives the least attention. The coastal band within the first 200 feet of water accounts for roughly 15–20% of total installed mileage but a disproportionate share of recorded failures. Large DP2 vessels are too costly to deploy in these depths, while small coastal craft lack the endurance and sensor payload for high-quality inspection. This gap leaves a critical portion of the global network effectively invisible and forces operators into reactive maintenance rather than proactive monitoring.
This presentation introduces a new approach to shallow-water survey using remotely operated surface vessels. Scout-18, an 18-foot unmanned platform paired with a tethered ROV, replicates the core functions of an 80-meter survey ship at a fraction of the cost. The system captures video and sonar data that feeds into a software platform converting raw survey logs into continuously updated digital twins, with automated anomaly detection and integration into existing GIS and ERP systems.
We will share early findings from engagements with cable owners off the coast of California, pipeline monitoring in Egypt, and cable routing work in Vanuatu. These case studies illustrate how collapsing the unit economics of inspection enables asset owners to shift from reactive fault response to continuous situational awareness.
Attendees will gain insight into the operational and technical considerations of deploying compact unmanned survey systems in shallow water, the data workflows required to translate raw survey output into actionable intelligence, and the implications for cable protection strategies in high-risk coastal zones.
SeaTrac and the University of Southern Mississippi are working together to demonstrate the use of SeaTrac’s SP-48 uncrewed surface vessel as a persistent surface expression for uncrewed underwater vehicles, subsea sensors, and other underwater assets. The demonstration will evaluate how a low-logistics, long-endurance USV can support subsea operations by providing remote positioning, command-and-control support, and communications relay capabilities using an integrated Sonardyne Gyro USBL 5000 system.
Subsea operations increasingly depend on distributed underwater systems, including UUVs, seabed instruments, acoustic modems, and other autonomous or remotely monitored assets. These systems often require a surface node to provide acoustic positioning, data relay, mission coordination, and operator awareness. Traditionally, this role has been filled by crewed vessels, which can introduce significant cost, scheduling, endurance, and personnel-risk constraints. The SP-48 demonstration is intended to show how an uncrewed maritime system can assume many of these surface-support functions while reducing operational burden and enabling more persistent subsea presence.
The SP-48 is a 4.8-meter, solar-powered USV designed for persistent operations from nearshore environments to open ocean. It supports 24/7 operations, redundant communications, man-in/on-the-loop remote supervision, waypoint-based mission execution, AIS, 360-degree situational-awareness cameras, and multiple payload configurations. SeaTrac has previously operated the SP-48 on long-duration missions exceeding two months and 1,600 nautical miles, and has demonstrated acoustic payload operations, including a Gulf of Mexico data-harvest mission using a Sonardyne HPT 7000 payload to collect data from nine seafloor sensors over approximately 570 nautical miles.
For the proposed demonstration, the SP-48 will be configured to act as a mobile and persistent surface node for underwater assets. The system concept includes the Sonardyne Gyro USBL 5000 for acoustic tracking and positioning; onboard communications links to move vehicle, payload, and mission data ashore; and remote supervision from SeaTrac’s operations architecture. The University of Southern Mississippi team will lead test planning, evaluation, and demonstration activities, with SeaTrac supporting platform integration, operations, and mission execution. The work will assess how the integrated system performs as a surface expression for UUVs and other underwater assets, including its ability to support acoustic positioning, relay operational data, maintain mission awareness, and coordinate with shore-based operators.
This presentation will provide an overview of the demonstration objectives, system architecture, planned test approach, and results available at the time of Underwater Intervention 2026. It will discuss the operational value of using uncrewed surface vessels to support subsea work, including reduced dependence on crewed vessels, increased endurance, lower logistics, persistent access to remote operating areas, and the ability to scale support for distributed underwater systems. The presentation will also address practical considerations such as payload integration, remote operations, communications paths, safety and recovery planning, and coordination between USV operators and subsea mission teams.
The broader intent of this effort is to demonstrate that uncrewed maritime systems such as the SP-48 can provide a reliable, cost-effective, and scalable surface-support layer for subsea operations. By combining persistent USV operations with proven acoustic positioning and communications technologies, the demonstration will show a pathway toward more efficient support of UUV missions, subsea infrastructure monitoring, seafloor sensor networks, environmental data collection, and future offshore intervention activities.
Layered Media Detection (LMD) represents a significant advancement in hydrographic surveying by extending the capabilities of multibeam sonar into environments where surveyors have traditionally relied on dual-frequency single beam echo sounders to assess fluid mud and layered sediment conditions. For decades, determining the extent and characteristics of fluid mud deposits has largely been a profile-based exercise, requiring surveyors to collect individual cross-sections and interpolate conditions between widely spaced survey lines. While effective for identifying sediment layers along a track line, these methods provide only a limited view of highly dynamic environments and often leave uncertainty regarding the spatial extent, thickness, and variability of sediment deposits between measurements.
Recent advances in broadband multibeam sonar processing have enabled a different approach. Layered Media Detection utilizes simultaneous multi-frequency acoustic analysis to identify and map multiple sediment interfaces during a single survey, allowing fluid mud and underlying sediment structures to be visualized as continuous three-dimensional surfaces rather than isolated profiles. This transition from line-based observations to full-coverage spatial mapping provides hydrographers, port authorities, and dredging organizations with a much more complete understanding of sediment conditions across an entire project area.
By producing co-registered datasets that reveal both upper sediment boundaries and deeper sediment structures, LMD enables the creation of detailed 3D models that illustrate sediment distribution, thickness, morphology, and change over time. Features that may be difficult or impossible to identify between single beam survey lines can be visualized directly, providing improved awareness of sediment accumulation patterns, dredging impacts, depositional trends, and other processes that influence waterway management. The ability to observe these conditions across a complete survey area rather than along discrete transects represents a fundamental shift in how layered sediment environments can be characterized and understood.
As the technology has matured through extensive field testing and operational deployments in ports, rivers, navigation channels, and dredged waterways, new applications have continued to emerge. Beyond simply extending traditional survey methods, LMD is enabling surveyors to evaluate sediment systems in ways that were previously impractical using conventional techniques. The resulting datasets support more comprehensive analysis of fluid mud behavior, sediment transport, and seabed evolution while providing a richer framework for visualization, interpretation, and decision-making.
This presentation explores the evolution of Layered Media Detection from its initial development through its refinement into an operational technology and examines how full-coverage 3D sediment characterization is changing expectations for hydrographic surveying in layered sediment environments. Through examples drawn from recent field deployments, attendees will see how advances in multibeam sonar technology are transforming what was once a sparse, profile-based workflow into a comprehensive spatial mapping capability, opening new opportunities for understanding and managing complex underwater environments.
This paper presents an overview of the latest developments in Sonardyne’s SPRINT-Nav family. Throughout 2025 and 2026 the SPRINT-Nav family has undergone a significant update, from introducing the world’s smallest hybrid navigator that was presented at Underwater Intervention last year to a complete update across the rest of the family – SPRINT-Nav M, I, S and X and beyond. Through this presentation Sonardyne will highlight how we’ve evolved SPRINT-Nav to meet the increasing demands and use cases of complete suite of marine robotic platforms.
We will demonstrate real-world case studies of SPRINT-Nav performance with a focus on their impact on survey operations. Learn how the SPRINT-Nav family is enabling small inspection ROVs and micro AUVs to navigate and position to levels that enable them to take on tasks that previously called for larger and more capable platforms. Understand how uncrewed surface vessels can reduce their reliance on potentially spoofed or jammed GNSS aiding with SPRINT-Nav taking care of vehicle navigation in a GNSS independent solution. Discover how the new generation of ultra long range extra large UUVs can transit thousands of kilometres in mid deep water without the need to surface with a reliable and precise navigation payload onboard that means mission and data are solid.
Finally, the paper will explore how collaboration with industry partners is positioning SPRINT-Nav as a critical enabler of increasingly remote and autonomous operations. Through interoperability with complementary technologies and ongoing innovation, SPRINT-Nav supports the transition toward smarter, more autonomous subsea systems, reducing operational costs while maintaining mission critical requirements that in today’s operations still rely heavily on human intervention.
The offshore energy industry relies on accurate ocean current measurements to reduce risk and optimize exploration, development, and production operations, especially in the Gulf of America where assets frequently get exposed to the effects of the Loop Current System (LCS). The current industry standard for LC surveys utilizes a data acquisition system deployed aboard offshore supply vessels (OSVs) of 200 feet or greater. Recent technological advancements have made it possible to deploy a comparable data collection payload from a purpose-built autonomous vessel. The first successful LC survey was conducted in August 2025 using Chance Maritime’s new 40-foot Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV) designed for long endurance in extreme ocean conditions. The platform demonstrated five days of fully autonomous operation, collecting data comparable to measurements from traditional OSV-based surveys and demonstrating sufficient accuracy for operational use. This system offers a viable path toward improved real-time ocean monitoring and offshore decision support.
A new system for underwater mechanical application (patent pending) of underwater antifoulants will be dislosed. It incorporates Barnacle-Blocker, LLC's crayon-like wax based antifoulants into a hook & loop (compare to Velcro) disk that attaches to a mechanical polisher. The disks can be used on inderwater compatible polishing disks operated manually or by robots to coat propellors and other underwater surfaces with an antifoulant.
Deploying AI on underwater and maritime platforms sounds straightforward until you're actually doing it. Teams run into the same friction points: integrating sensors from different vendors, building custom middleware, managing data pipelines, and trying to run inference on hardware with no reliable cloud connection. Most of that work has nothing to do with the problem they're actually trying to solve.
This talk covers how edge-native AI is changing that equation in working commercial systems today. Drawing on real deployments with VideoRay for automated underwater inspection, OceanAero for maritime threat detection on autonomous surface vessels, and WESMAR for intelligent commercial fishing sonar, we walk through what these integrations looked like, what broke, and what made them work. All three teams used NEPI (Numurus Edge Platform Interface) to skip rebuilding the sensor connectivity, edge inference, and data pipeline layers from scratch, freeing them to focus on the actual application.
Attendees will leave with a practical framework for evaluating edge AI for their own systems and a clear-eyed look at where the real integration challenges sit.
Sound speed profiles derived from Argo float data underpin acoustic prediction, AUV mission planning, and GNSS-acoustic seafloor positioning — but no existing product tells you how well-constrained those profiles are at any given location and time. When an operator substitutes a climatological prior for an in-situ cast, they accept unquantified risk. If the underlying Argo coverage was sparse or stale for that region, there is currently no signal that the acoustic model or position estimate is degraded.
This presentation introduces an open-source Python library that fills that gap. The library performs spatiotemporal interpolation of Argo temperature and salinity profiles and delivers two outputs at every query point: a propagated uncertainty estimate that combines sensor precision, vertical interpolation error, and spatiotemporal support; and an observational support score W, a coverage indicator that is large where floats are dense and recent, and small where coverage is sparse. Both outputs are delivered at query time, alongside the T/S estimate itself.
Results are validated through replication of a published Bay of Bengal sound speed study. Interpolation-introduced uncertainty substantially exceeds sensor precision and is comparable in magnitude to observed surface temperature variability, confirming that coverage gaps produce errors large enough to matter operationally. A support-encoded visualization makes these gaps immediately legible: well-constrained regions appear vivid, sparse regions wash out.
The library is available at github.com/Calvinxc1/argo-data-interpolation and supports both EOS-80 and TEOS-10 sound speed formulations. The goal is a practitioner-facing tool: something an AUV operator or acoustic modeler can query against their mission area and get an honest answer about what the float network actually knows.
The traditional model for subsea validation is a primary friction point for the Blue Economy, characterized by high capital risk, lack of infrastructure and fragmented data/systems. This presentation introduces an emerging paradigm in maritime innovation: the persistent, instrumented subsea test range. By establishing a five-nautical-mile-square "experimental airspace" in the underwater domain, we solve the critical challenge of GPS-denied navigation and real-time telemetry. We will present on a real world facility at Plymouth Smart Sound in the UK as well as aspirations for the US and wider markets.
The core innovation lies in a distributed mesh of acoustic positioning and communication nodes that function as "seabed satellites”. This network enables seamless tracking, positioning, navigation and data transfer from subsea robotic platforms to a surface gateway (buoys, vessels, USVs), which utilize high-speed satellite broadband to reach a remote operations center. When integrated with real-time environmental sensors and digital twin management systems, the range creates a live situational picture that allows for the testing and validation of subsea vehicle behaviors such as AI/ML.
We will explore how this infrastructure model standardizes TRL progression for offshore energy, defense, and science. Attendees will learn how networked sensing can shift the industry from bespoke, high-cost prototypes to scalable, field proven and market ready autonomous systems. Innovation isn’t just about robots, its about data. This is a networked environment that allow them to fail fast, fail small and fail safely to learn faster!
Accurate, reliable heading is fundamental to marine and subsea navigation particularly in GNSS-denied environments. Existing solutions force a trade-off: optical gyros, such as Fibre Optic Gyros and Ring Laser Gyros, deliver high precision but are large, power-hungry, and expensive, while lower-cost alternatives, such as GNSS heading and magnetometers, are highly sensitive to signal vulnerabilities or environmental conditions.
This presentation introduces the first commercially available MEMS-based north-seeking gyrocompass, targeting a critical market gap. Using advanced MEMS technology and advanced algorithms, the system directly measures Earth’s rotation to determine true heading eliminating reliance on magnetic sensing or external aiding.
The SBG Systems gyrocompass achieves sub-degree heading accuracy with fast alignment, even while in motion. It does so with minimal SWaP-C (Size, Weight, Power and Cost) impact, operating at 3–5 W and weighing just 300–400 g. This is significantly smaller, lighter, and more efficient than traditional inertial systems such as optical or spinning-mass.
Rather than replacing survey-grade gyros, this technology expands access to true north-seeking capability. It enables reliable, always-available navigation for constrained platforms, including micro-AUVs, ROVs, USVs, and commercial vessels. MEMS gyrocompassing is a scalable, cost-effective solution poised to reshape heading systems for the next generation of autonomous marine operations.
Kongsberg’s Listen is a passive electromagnetic sensor system designed for measuring electric and magnetic fields in seawater and optimized for integration on HUGIN AUVs. When installed on HUGIN, Listen uses hull‑flush‑mounted electrodes arranged into eight electrode pairs to reconstruct the full three‑dimensional electric field, combined with magnetometers that provide complementary magnetic measurements. This configuration enables low‑noise, repeatable data acquisition well suited to long‑range AUV missions.
Listen supports contactless cathodic protection (CP) inspection by exploiting the electric fields generated by active CP systems. A HUGIN AUV equipped with Listen can survey pipelines at typical altitudes of 5–10 m and speeds of 3–4 knots, continuously measuring the 3D electric field without physical contact. From these measurements, anode output currents, return currents into the structure, and anode material consumption rates can be estimated, enabling assessment of CP performance, coating condition, and remaining lifetime. The electromagnetic data can be integrated with navigation, camera, and multibeam echosounder data to deliver decision‑ready integrity information with high productivity and reduced operational risk.
Beyond CP inspection, Listen enables buried power cable detection, positioning, and burial‑depth estimation. Sea trials with the Listen receiver system deployed on a Hugin Superior AUV demonstrated high signal‑to‑noise electric and magnetic field measurements at the 50 Hz powerline frequency across multiple passes and altitudes. The results showed reliable cable detection at altitudes up to 20 m and burial‑depth estimation using combined electric‑ and magnetic‑field analysis, highlighting the value of multi‑field sensing compared to magnetic‑only approaches.
Ensuring the long-term integrity of subsea pipelines and seafloor assets is one of the most critical challenges in offshore energy operations. Traditional cathodic protection (CP) surveys often rely on intrusive methods or limited data acquisition, resulting in partial insights into corrosion risk and system performance. Ocean Floor Geophysics’ (OFG) patented integrated Cathodic Protection (iCP) technology represents a step-change in subsea asset integrity management—delivering non-intrusive, high-resolution, and spatially continuous assessments of cathodically protected systems.
The iCP system employs an innovative EMF sensing approach to detect and map the electrical and magnetic fields associated with CP currents, without requiring physical contact with the asset. This capability enables accurate characterization of CP performance of pipelines and subsea assets. By eliminating the need for direct electrical contact, iCP minimizes operational risk, reduces survey time, and allows for assessments over extensive pipeline sections and complex infrastructure.
OFG’s iCP technology can be deployed via Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) or Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), offering flexible and scalable inspection strategies. During deployment, the system collects synchronized, high-density electromagnetic data, which are processed to generate detailed maps of current distribution and potential gradients. The result is a comprehensive and quantitative view of CP system health—providing engineers with the actionable intelligence required to evaluate system adequacy, detect anomalies, and plan proactive maintenance interventions.
The insights derived from iCP measurements extend beyond basic compliance verification. By integrating these data into advanced modeling workflows, asset integrity teams can predict coating degradation, estimate remaining CP life, and design optimized retrofit or life-extension programs based on measured, rather than assumed, performance. The technology thus bridges the gap between inspection data and engineering decision-making—supporting more sustainable, data-driven management of subsea assets throughout their operational lifecycle.
In this presentation, Ocean Floor Geophysics will showcase field results from recent iCP deployments on active subsea pipelines and production assets, illustrating the system’s ability to deliver unparalleled resolution and interpretive power. The discussion will highlight how non-intrusive CP monitoring transforms both the understanding and visualization of cathodic protection systems, setting a new benchmark for integrity assessment in the offshore sector.
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Underwater robotics, aquaculture monitoring, and subsea inspection are increasingly driven by AI and machine vision, but most systems still rely on imaging hardware that was never designed for operation in water. We’ll walk through a comparative optical study showing how common subsea camera architectures perform — from flat and dome ports to corrector optics — and contrast those with purpose-built wet lens designs. The takeaway is not just better images are possible, but more reliable perception, lower downstream compute requirements, and better real-world AI performance are possible even in challenging underwater environments.
Underwater imaging often relies on adapting terrestrial camera lenses for subsea use through flat or domed optical ports. While convenient and cost-effective, these configurations introduce optical compromises due to refractive index mismatches at the air-glass-water interface and lens designs optimized for in-air use. This talk presents a comparative performance analysis of several underwater port configurations, including flat ports, hemispherical domes, Ivanoff-Rebikoff correctors, and a multi-element custom "wet" port, alongside a fully customized underwater lens system explicitly designed for direct operation in seawater.
Optical metrics, including modulation transfer function (MTF), lateral chromatic aberration, field of view (FOV), and image simulation fidelity, are evaluated. Results show that terrestrial lenses with port adaptors suffer significant degradation in image quality, while Ivanoff-Rebikoff correctors recover resolution but leave residual chromatic and geometric distortions. The Optopax custom port further improves performance, while the fully customized underwater lens surpasses all configurations, delivering superior MTF, complete chromatic correction, and field preservation, along with form factor flexibility for integration into space-constrained platforms.
Simulated Siemens star charts and real-world scenes demonstrate significantly enhanced edge definition, spatial detail, and color accuracy with both the custom port and the bespoke wet lens. By eliminating the optical discontinuities at air-glass interfaces and leveraging seawater as an active optical medium, the fully customized design represents a new design strategy in subsea optics, enabling high-fidelity imaging for underwater robotics, aquaculture monitoring, and AI-enhanced marine vision applications.
A revolution in offshore survey and inspection is accelerating. Autonomous systems, long-promised to replace crewed survey vessels, and their cost, are reaching a level of maturity where this reality is now within sight.
However, challenges remain to fully decouple from crewed vessels. Today, most AUVs still need to be launched and recovered from a crewed vessel. These exquisite systems command a high day-rate and haven't repeatably proven that they reduce enough ship days-at-sea to justify the cost.
Ulysses is working to address these challenges in two ways: by building the lowest-cost platforms in their class and the ability to autonomously launch-and-recover multiple systems from a single uncrewed vessel. Through this approach, Ulysses will achieve a step-change, unlocking a truly cost-effective approach to persistent data collection and monitoring of subsea assets.
Operators in the renewable energy and oil and gas industries rely upon Controlled Flow Excavation (CFE) technology to support complex scopes – with the triad of ever-greater performance, efficiency and environmental impact driving continual development.
With more than 640 successful CFE projects to our name worldwide, James Fisher has over 25 years of practical experience in safe, efficient, non-contact seabed intervention. James Fisher introduces JetFlow 100 as the next generation of CFE technology, designed to overcome increasingly challenging soil conditions while maintaining efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
JetFlow 100 is versatile, with a compact footprint and high excavation performance enabling a variety of inspection, maintenance, repair, and commissioning and decommissioning activities across the oil and gas and renewable energy industries. Uses include both pre- and post-installation trenching of pipelines, umbilicals, and subsea infrastructure, or seabed deburial to support structure inspection or decommissioning activities.
JetFlow 100 is a step change in subsea excavation capability. By significantly increasing flow power and jetting efficiency, the system enables effective excavation in stiffer soils and clays—conditions where conventional CFE tools have historically struggled. This optimal balance between mass flow rate and velocity is achieved without needing to add large, high-pressure jetting spreads, thereby reducing vessel deck space requirements and contributing to lower overall project costs.
James Fisher has combined the key advantages of non-contact excavation with the capability to operate across a wide range of soil strengths – including clays up to ~100 kPa - in standard configuration.
This ensures minimal risk to subsea assets while delivering consistent, repeatable trenching performance, and expands the applicability of CFE methods into projects that would traditionally require more complex, resource-intensive solutions.
The system has undergone successful testing in Aberdeen, UK, demonstrating stability and performance across a range of operating conditions without compromising tool integrity. These results validate the design philosophy of enhancing excavation power while maintaining operational simplicity and reliability, with JetFlow 100 now available to customers throughout the Americas.
This paper will present the development journey of JetFlow 100, including design innovations, testing and simulation results, and its potential to re-establish CFE as a preferred methodology in subsea project planning. The discussion will also explore how this technology can unlock efficiencies in future offshore operations by reducing cost, complexity, and environmental impact, both in North American waters and beyond.
James Fisher is running an advanced simulation programme to de-risk and optimise the design of our CFE tools such as the JetFlow 100, and to demonstrate their effectiveness. We are investing in sophisticated simulation tools and developing cutting-edge simulation techniques to perform simulations and ensure simulation results are representative of real life.
With rigorous simulations and testing underway throughout the year, additional data will be shared at Underwater Intervention in December 2026.
Autonomous subsea vehicles are evolving beyond discrete mission tools into integrated operational systems. Among the most promising developments is the emergence of port‑launched, long‑range unmanned underwater vehicles (LUUVs) designed to deliver persistent, lower‑logistics subsea survey and infrastructure awareness without reliance on vessel‑intensive operations.
This presentation explores how advances in vehicle architecture, endurance, navigation, and onboard edge processing are enabling a new operational model for autonomous survey. By exploiting data at the point of collection and integrating persistent data workflows, these systems reduce time to insight while expanding coverage and operational flexibility.
Topics include the design considerations of long‑range autonomous platforms, navigation and sensing strategies, onboard data exploitation, and how repeatable autonomous missions create compounding value through continuous infrastructure awareness. The session will also examine representative operational concepts—ranging from completed activities to near‑term deployments—to illustrate how port‑launched autonomy can support scalable survey operations across offshore and coastal domains.
Ultimately, the presentation positions autonomous UUVs not as standalone vehicles, but as system‑level enablers—reducing logistics, increasing persistence, and making subsea survey and monitoring more economically and operationally practical for a broader range of users.
The highest-risk portion of subsea cable infrastructure receives the least attention. The coastal band within the first 200 feet of water accounts for roughly 15–20% of total installed mileage but a disproportionate share of recorded failures. Large DP2 vessels are too costly to deploy in these depths, while small coastal craft lack the endurance and sensor payload for high-quality inspection. This gap leaves a critical portion of the global network effectively invisible and forces operators into reactive maintenance rather than proactive monitoring.
This presentation introduces a new approach to shallow-water survey using remotely operated surface vessels. Scout-18, an 18-foot unmanned platform paired with a tethered ROV, replicates the core functions of an 80-meter survey ship at a fraction of the cost. The system captures video and sonar data that feeds into a software platform converting raw survey logs into continuously updated digital twins, with automated anomaly detection and integration into existing GIS and ERP systems.
We will share early findings from engagements with cable owners off the coast of California, pipeline monitoring in Egypt, and cable routing work in Vanuatu. These case studies illustrate how collapsing the unit economics of inspection enables asset owners to shift from reactive fault response to continuous situational awareness.
Attendees will gain insight into the operational and technical considerations of deploying compact unmanned survey systems in shallow water, the data workflows required to translate raw survey output into actionable intelligence, and the implications for cable protection strategies in high-risk coastal zones.
SeaTrac and the University of Southern Mississippi are working together to demonstrate the use of SeaTrac’s SP-48 uncrewed surface vessel as a persistent surface expression for uncrewed underwater vehicles, subsea sensors, and other underwater assets. The demonstration will evaluate how a low-logistics, long-endurance USV can support subsea operations by providing remote positioning, command-and-control support, and communications relay capabilities using an integrated Sonardyne Gyro USBL 5000 system.
Subsea operations increasingly depend on distributed underwater systems, including UUVs, seabed instruments, acoustic modems, and other autonomous or remotely monitored assets. These systems often require a surface node to provide acoustic positioning, data relay, mission coordination, and operator awareness. Traditionally, this role has been filled by crewed vessels, which can introduce significant cost, scheduling, endurance, and personnel-risk constraints. The SP-48 demonstration is intended to show how an uncrewed maritime system can assume many of these surface-support functions while reducing operational burden and enabling more persistent subsea presence.
The SP-48 is a 4.8-meter, solar-powered USV designed for persistent operations from nearshore environments to open ocean. It supports 24/7 operations, redundant communications, man-in/on-the-loop remote supervision, waypoint-based mission execution, AIS, 360-degree situational-awareness cameras, and multiple payload configurations. SeaTrac has previously operated the SP-48 on long-duration missions exceeding two months and 1,600 nautical miles, and has demonstrated acoustic payload operations, including a Gulf of Mexico data-harvest mission using a Sonardyne HPT 7000 payload to collect data from nine seafloor sensors over approximately 570 nautical miles.
For the proposed demonstration, the SP-48 will be configured to act as a mobile and persistent surface node for underwater assets. The system concept includes the Sonardyne Gyro USBL 5000 for acoustic tracking and positioning; onboard communications links to move vehicle, payload, and mission data ashore; and remote supervision from SeaTrac’s operations architecture. The University of Southern Mississippi team will lead test planning, evaluation, and demonstration activities, with SeaTrac supporting platform integration, operations, and mission execution. The work will assess how the integrated system performs as a surface expression for UUVs and other underwater assets, including its ability to support acoustic positioning, relay operational data, maintain mission awareness, and coordinate with shore-based operators.
This presentation will provide an overview of the demonstration objectives, system architecture, planned test approach, and results available at the time of Underwater Intervention 2026. It will discuss the operational value of using uncrewed surface vessels to support subsea work, including reduced dependence on crewed vessels, increased endurance, lower logistics, persistent access to remote operating areas, and the ability to scale support for distributed underwater systems. The presentation will also address practical considerations such as payload integration, remote operations, communications paths, safety and recovery planning, and coordination between USV operators and subsea mission teams.
The broader intent of this effort is to demonstrate that uncrewed maritime systems such as the SP-48 can provide a reliable, cost-effective, and scalable surface-support layer for subsea operations. By combining persistent USV operations with proven acoustic positioning and communications technologies, the demonstration will show a pathway toward more efficient support of UUV missions, subsea infrastructure monitoring, seafloor sensor networks, environmental data collection, and future offshore intervention activities.
Layered Media Detection (LMD) represents a significant advancement in hydrographic surveying by extending the capabilities of multibeam sonar into environments where surveyors have traditionally relied on dual-frequency single beam echo sounders to assess fluid mud and layered sediment conditions. For decades, determining the extent and characteristics of fluid mud deposits has largely been a profile-based exercise, requiring surveyors to collect individual cross-sections and interpolate conditions between widely spaced survey lines. While effective for identifying sediment layers along a track line, these methods provide only a limited view of highly dynamic environments and often leave uncertainty regarding the spatial extent, thickness, and variability of sediment deposits between measurements.
Recent advances in broadband multibeam sonar processing have enabled a different approach. Layered Media Detection utilizes simultaneous multi-frequency acoustic analysis to identify and map multiple sediment interfaces during a single survey, allowing fluid mud and underlying sediment structures to be visualized as continuous three-dimensional surfaces rather than isolated profiles. This transition from line-based observations to full-coverage spatial mapping provides hydrographers, port authorities, and dredging organizations with a much more complete understanding of sediment conditions across an entire project area.
By producing co-registered datasets that reveal both upper sediment boundaries and deeper sediment structures, LMD enables the creation of detailed 3D models that illustrate sediment distribution, thickness, morphology, and change over time. Features that may be difficult or impossible to identify between single beam survey lines can be visualized directly, providing improved awareness of sediment accumulation patterns, dredging impacts, depositional trends, and other processes that influence waterway management. The ability to observe these conditions across a complete survey area rather than along discrete transects represents a fundamental shift in how layered sediment environments can be characterized and understood.
As the technology has matured through extensive field testing and operational deployments in ports, rivers, navigation channels, and dredged waterways, new applications have continued to emerge. Beyond simply extending traditional survey methods, LMD is enabling surveyors to evaluate sediment systems in ways that were previously impractical using conventional techniques. The resulting datasets support more comprehensive analysis of fluid mud behavior, sediment transport, and seabed evolution while providing a richer framework for visualization, interpretation, and decision-making.
This presentation explores the evolution of Layered Media Detection from its initial development through its refinement into an operational technology and examines how full-coverage 3D sediment characterization is changing expectations for hydrographic surveying in layered sediment environments. Through examples drawn from recent field deployments, attendees will see how advances in multibeam sonar technology are transforming what was once a sparse, profile-based workflow into a comprehensive spatial mapping capability, opening new opportunities for understanding and managing complex underwater environments.
This paper presents an overview of the latest developments in Sonardyne’s SPRINT-Nav family. Throughout 2025 and 2026 the SPRINT-Nav family has undergone a significant update, from introducing the world’s smallest hybrid navigator that was presented at Underwater Intervention last year to a complete update across the rest of the family – SPRINT-Nav M, I, S and X and beyond. Through this presentation Sonardyne will highlight how we’ve evolved SPRINT-Nav to meet the increasing demands and use cases of complete suite of marine robotic platforms.
We will demonstrate real-world case studies of SPRINT-Nav performance with a focus on their impact on survey operations. Learn how the SPRINT-Nav family is enabling small inspection ROVs and micro AUVs to navigate and position to levels that enable them to take on tasks that previously called for larger and more capable platforms. Understand how uncrewed surface vessels can reduce their reliance on potentially spoofed or jammed GNSS aiding with SPRINT-Nav taking care of vehicle navigation in a GNSS independent solution. Discover how the new generation of ultra long range extra large UUVs can transit thousands of kilometres in mid deep water without the need to surface with a reliable and precise navigation payload onboard that means mission and data are solid.
Finally, the paper will explore how collaboration with industry partners is positioning SPRINT-Nav as a critical enabler of increasingly remote and autonomous operations. Through interoperability with complementary technologies and ongoing innovation, SPRINT-Nav supports the transition toward smarter, more autonomous subsea systems, reducing operational costs while maintaining mission critical requirements that in today’s operations still rely heavily on human intervention.
The offshore energy industry relies on accurate ocean current measurements to reduce risk and optimize exploration, development, and production operations, especially in the Gulf of America where assets frequently get exposed to the effects of the Loop Current System (LCS). The current industry standard for LC surveys utilizes a data acquisition system deployed aboard offshore supply vessels (OSVs) of 200 feet or greater. Recent technological advancements have made it possible to deploy a comparable data collection payload from a purpose-built autonomous vessel. The first successful LC survey was conducted in August 2025 using Chance Maritime’s new 40-foot Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV) designed for long endurance in extreme ocean conditions. The platform demonstrated five days of fully autonomous operation, collecting data comparable to measurements from traditional OSV-based surveys and demonstrating sufficient accuracy for operational use. This system offers a viable path toward improved real-time ocean monitoring and offshore decision support.
A new system for underwater mechanical application (patent pending) of underwater antifoulants will be dislosed. It incorporates Barnacle-Blocker, LLC's crayon-like wax based antifoulants into a hook & loop (compare to Velcro) disk that attaches to a mechanical polisher. The disks can be used on inderwater compatible polishing disks operated manually or by robots to coat propellors and other underwater surfaces with an antifoulant.
Deploying AI on underwater and maritime platforms sounds straightforward until you're actually doing it. Teams run into the same friction points: integrating sensors from different vendors, building custom middleware, managing data pipelines, and trying to run inference on hardware with no reliable cloud connection. Most of that work has nothing to do with the problem they're actually trying to solve.
This talk covers how edge-native AI is changing that equation in working commercial systems today. Drawing on real deployments with VideoRay for automated underwater inspection, OceanAero for maritime threat detection on autonomous surface vessels, and WESMAR for intelligent commercial fishing sonar, we walk through what these integrations looked like, what broke, and what made them work. All three teams used NEPI (Numurus Edge Platform Interface) to skip rebuilding the sensor connectivity, edge inference, and data pipeline layers from scratch, freeing them to focus on the actual application.
Attendees will leave with a practical framework for evaluating edge AI for their own systems and a clear-eyed look at where the real integration challenges sit.
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Sound speed profiles derived from Argo float data underpin acoustic prediction, AUV mission planning, and GNSS-acoustic seafloor positioning — but no existing product tells you how well-constrained those profiles are at any given location and time. When an operator substitutes a climatological prior for an in-situ cast, they accept unquantified risk. If the underlying Argo coverage was sparse or stale for that region, there is currently no signal that the acoustic model or position estimate is degraded.
This presentation introduces an open-source Python library that fills that gap. The library performs spatiotemporal interpolation of Argo temperature and salinity profiles and delivers two outputs at every query point: a propagated uncertainty estimate that combines sensor precision, vertical interpolation error, and spatiotemporal support; and an observational support score W, a coverage indicator that is large where floats are dense and recent, and small where coverage is sparse. Both outputs are delivered at query time, alongside the T/S estimate itself.
Results are validated through replication of a published Bay of Bengal sound speed study. Interpolation-introduced uncertainty substantially exceeds sensor precision and is comparable in magnitude to observed surface temperature variability, confirming that coverage gaps produce errors large enough to matter operationally. A support-encoded visualization makes these gaps immediately legible: well-constrained regions appear vivid, sparse regions wash out.
The library is available at github.com/Calvinxc1/argo-data-interpolation and supports both EOS-80 and TEOS-10 sound speed formulations. The goal is a practitioner-facing tool: something an AUV operator or acoustic modeler can query against their mission area and get an honest answer about what the float network actually knows.
The traditional model for subsea validation is a primary friction point for the Blue Economy, characterized by high capital risk, lack of infrastructure and fragmented data/systems. This presentation introduces an emerging paradigm in maritime innovation: the persistent, instrumented subsea test range. By establishing a five-nautical-mile-square "experimental airspace" in the underwater domain, we solve the critical challenge of GPS-denied navigation and real-time telemetry. We will present on a real world facility at Plymouth Smart Sound in the UK as well as aspirations for the US and wider markets.
The core innovation lies in a distributed mesh of acoustic positioning and communication nodes that function as "seabed satellites”. This network enables seamless tracking, positioning, navigation and data transfer from subsea robotic platforms to a surface gateway (buoys, vessels, USVs), which utilize high-speed satellite broadband to reach a remote operations center. When integrated with real-time environmental sensors and digital twin management systems, the range creates a live situational picture that allows for the testing and validation of subsea vehicle behaviors such as AI/ML.
We will explore how this infrastructure model standardizes TRL progression for offshore energy, defense, and science. Attendees will learn how networked sensing can shift the industry from bespoke, high-cost prototypes to scalable, field proven and market ready autonomous systems. Innovation isn’t just about robots, its about data. This is a networked environment that allow them to fail fast, fail small and fail safely to learn faster!
Accurate, reliable heading is fundamental to marine and subsea navigation particularly in GNSS-denied environments. Existing solutions force a trade-off: optical gyros, such as Fibre Optic Gyros and Ring Laser Gyros, deliver high precision but are large, power-hungry, and expensive, while lower-cost alternatives, such as GNSS heading and magnetometers, are highly sensitive to signal vulnerabilities or environmental conditions.
This presentation introduces the first commercially available MEMS-based north-seeking gyrocompass, targeting a critical market gap. Using advanced MEMS technology and advanced algorithms, the system directly measures Earth’s rotation to determine true heading eliminating reliance on magnetic sensing or external aiding.
The SBG Systems gyrocompass achieves sub-degree heading accuracy with fast alignment, even while in motion. It does so with minimal SWaP-C (Size, Weight, Power and Cost) impact, operating at 3–5 W and weighing just 300–400 g. This is significantly smaller, lighter, and more efficient than traditional inertial systems such as optical or spinning-mass.
Rather than replacing survey-grade gyros, this technology expands access to true north-seeking capability. It enables reliable, always-available navigation for constrained platforms, including micro-AUVs, ROVs, USVs, and commercial vessels. MEMS gyrocompassing is a scalable, cost-effective solution poised to reshape heading systems for the next generation of autonomous marine operations.
Kongsberg’s Listen is a passive electromagnetic sensor system designed for measuring electric and magnetic fields in seawater and optimized for integration on HUGIN AUVs. When installed on HUGIN, Listen uses hull‑flush‑mounted electrodes arranged into eight electrode pairs to reconstruct the full three‑dimensional electric field, combined with magnetometers that provide complementary magnetic measurements. This configuration enables low‑noise, repeatable data acquisition well suited to long‑range AUV missions.
Listen supports contactless cathodic protection (CP) inspection by exploiting the electric fields generated by active CP systems. A HUGIN AUV equipped with Listen can survey pipelines at typical altitudes of 5–10 m and speeds of 3–4 knots, continuously measuring the 3D electric field without physical contact. From these measurements, anode output currents, return currents into the structure, and anode material consumption rates can be estimated, enabling assessment of CP performance, coating condition, and remaining lifetime. The electromagnetic data can be integrated with navigation, camera, and multibeam echosounder data to deliver decision‑ready integrity information with high productivity and reduced operational risk.
Beyond CP inspection, Listen enables buried power cable detection, positioning, and burial‑depth estimation. Sea trials with the Listen receiver system deployed on a Hugin Superior AUV demonstrated high signal‑to‑noise electric and magnetic field measurements at the 50 Hz powerline frequency across multiple passes and altitudes. The results showed reliable cable detection at altitudes up to 20 m and burial‑depth estimation using combined electric‑ and magnetic‑field analysis, highlighting the value of multi‑field sensing compared to magnetic‑only approaches.
Ensuring the long-term integrity of subsea pipelines and seafloor assets is one of the most critical challenges in offshore energy operations. Traditional cathodic protection (CP) surveys often rely on intrusive methods or limited data acquisition, resulting in partial insights into corrosion risk and system performance. Ocean Floor Geophysics’ (OFG) patented integrated Cathodic Protection (iCP) technology represents a step-change in subsea asset integrity management—delivering non-intrusive, high-resolution, and spatially continuous assessments of cathodically protected systems.
The iCP system employs an innovative EMF sensing approach to detect and map the electrical and magnetic fields associated with CP currents, without requiring physical contact with the asset. This capability enables accurate characterization of CP performance of pipelines and subsea assets. By eliminating the need for direct electrical contact, iCP minimizes operational risk, reduces survey time, and allows for assessments over extensive pipeline sections and complex infrastructure.
OFG’s iCP technology can be deployed via Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) or Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), offering flexible and scalable inspection strategies. During deployment, the system collects synchronized, high-density electromagnetic data, which are processed to generate detailed maps of current distribution and potential gradients. The result is a comprehensive and quantitative view of CP system health—providing engineers with the actionable intelligence required to evaluate system adequacy, detect anomalies, and plan proactive maintenance interventions.
The insights derived from iCP measurements extend beyond basic compliance verification. By integrating these data into advanced modeling workflows, asset integrity teams can predict coating degradation, estimate remaining CP life, and design optimized retrofit or life-extension programs based on measured, rather than assumed, performance. The technology thus bridges the gap between inspection data and engineering decision-making—supporting more sustainable, data-driven management of subsea assets throughout their operational lifecycle.
In this presentation, Ocean Floor Geophysics will showcase field results from recent iCP deployments on active subsea pipelines and production assets, illustrating the system’s ability to deliver unparalleled resolution and interpretive power. The discussion will highlight how non-intrusive CP monitoring transforms both the understanding and visualization of cathodic protection systems, setting a new benchmark for integrity assessment in the offshore sector.
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Sound speed profiles derived from Argo float data underpin acoustic prediction, AUV mission planning, and GNSS-acoustic seafloor positioning — but no existing product tells you how well-constrained those profiles are at any given location and time. When an operator substitutes a climatological prior for an in-situ cast, they accept unquantified risk. If the underlying Argo coverage was sparse or stale for that region, there is currently no signal that the acoustic model or position estimate is degraded.
This presentation introduces an open-source Python library that fills that gap. The library performs spatiotemporal interpolation of Argo temperature and salinity profiles and delivers two outputs at every query point: a propagated uncertainty estimate that combines sensor precision, vertical interpolation error, and spatiotemporal support; and an observational support score W, a coverage indicator that is large where floats are dense and recent, and small where coverage is sparse. Both outputs are delivered at query time, alongside the T/S estimate itself.
Results are validated through replication of a published Bay of Bengal sound speed study. Interpolation-introduced uncertainty substantially exceeds sensor precision and is comparable in magnitude to observed surface temperature variability, confirming that coverage gaps produce errors large enough to matter operationally. A support-encoded visualization makes these gaps immediately legible: well-constrained regions appear vivid, sparse regions wash out.
The library is available at github.com/Calvinxc1/argo-data-interpolation and supports both EOS-80 and TEOS-10 sound speed formulations. The goal is a practitioner-facing tool: something an AUV operator or acoustic modeler can query against their mission area and get an honest answer about what the float network actually knows.
The traditional model for subsea validation is a primary friction point for the Blue Economy, characterized by high capital risk, lack of infrastructure and fragmented data/systems. This presentation introduces an emerging paradigm in maritime innovation: the persistent, instrumented subsea test range. By establishing a five-nautical-mile-square "experimental airspace" in the underwater domain, we solve the critical challenge of GPS-denied navigation and real-time telemetry. We will present on a real world facility at Plymouth Smart Sound in the UK as well as aspirations for the US and wider markets.
The core innovation lies in a distributed mesh of acoustic positioning and communication nodes that function as "seabed satellites”. This network enables seamless tracking, positioning, navigation and data transfer from subsea robotic platforms to a surface gateway (buoys, vessels, USVs), which utilize high-speed satellite broadband to reach a remote operations center. When integrated with real-time environmental sensors and digital twin management systems, the range creates a live situational picture that allows for the testing and validation of subsea vehicle behaviors such as AI/ML.
We will explore how this infrastructure model standardizes TRL progression for offshore energy, defense, and science. Attendees will learn how networked sensing can shift the industry from bespoke, high-cost prototypes to scalable, field proven and market ready autonomous systems. Innovation isn’t just about robots, its about data. This is a networked environment that allow them to fail fast, fail small and fail safely to learn faster!
Accurate, reliable heading is fundamental to marine and subsea navigation particularly in GNSS-denied environments. Existing solutions force a trade-off: optical gyros, such as Fibre Optic Gyros and Ring Laser Gyros, deliver high precision but are large, power-hungry, and expensive, while lower-cost alternatives, such as GNSS heading and magnetometers, are highly sensitive to signal vulnerabilities or environmental conditions.
This presentation introduces the first commercially available MEMS-based north-seeking gyrocompass, targeting a critical market gap. Using advanced MEMS technology and advanced algorithms, the system directly measures Earth’s rotation to determine true heading eliminating reliance on magnetic sensing or external aiding.
The SBG Systems gyrocompass achieves sub-degree heading accuracy with fast alignment, even while in motion. It does so with minimal SWaP-C (Size, Weight, Power and Cost) impact, operating at 3–5 W and weighing just 300–400 g. This is significantly smaller, lighter, and more efficient than traditional inertial systems such as optical or spinning-mass.
Rather than replacing survey-grade gyros, this technology expands access to true north-seeking capability. It enables reliable, always-available navigation for constrained platforms, including micro-AUVs, ROVs, USVs, and commercial vessels. MEMS gyrocompassing is a scalable, cost-effective solution poised to reshape heading systems for the next generation of autonomous marine operations.
Kongsberg’s Listen is a passive electromagnetic sensor system designed for measuring electric and magnetic fields in seawater and optimized for integration on HUGIN AUVs. When installed on HUGIN, Listen uses hull‑flush‑mounted electrodes arranged into eight electrode pairs to reconstruct the full three‑dimensional electric field, combined with magnetometers that provide complementary magnetic measurements. This configuration enables low‑noise, repeatable data acquisition well suited to long‑range AUV missions.
Listen supports contactless cathodic protection (CP) inspection by exploiting the electric fields generated by active CP systems. A HUGIN AUV equipped with Listen can survey pipelines at typical altitudes of 5–10 m and speeds of 3–4 knots, continuously measuring the 3D electric field without physical contact. From these measurements, anode output currents, return currents into the structure, and anode material consumption rates can be estimated, enabling assessment of CP performance, coating condition, and remaining lifetime. The electromagnetic data can be integrated with navigation, camera, and multibeam echosounder data to deliver decision‑ready integrity information with high productivity and reduced operational risk.
Beyond CP inspection, Listen enables buried power cable detection, positioning, and burial‑depth estimation. Sea trials with the Listen receiver system deployed on a Hugin Superior AUV demonstrated high signal‑to‑noise electric and magnetic field measurements at the 50 Hz powerline frequency across multiple passes and altitudes. The results showed reliable cable detection at altitudes up to 20 m and burial‑depth estimation using combined electric‑ and magnetic‑field analysis, highlighting the value of multi‑field sensing compared to magnetic‑only approaches.
Ensuring the long-term integrity of subsea pipelines and seafloor assets is one of the most critical challenges in offshore energy operations. Traditional cathodic protection (CP) surveys often rely on intrusive methods or limited data acquisition, resulting in partial insights into corrosion risk and system performance. Ocean Floor Geophysics’ (OFG) patented integrated Cathodic Protection (iCP) technology represents a step-change in subsea asset integrity management—delivering non-intrusive, high-resolution, and spatially continuous assessments of cathodically protected systems.
The iCP system employs an innovative EMF sensing approach to detect and map the electrical and magnetic fields associated with CP currents, without requiring physical contact with the asset. This capability enables accurate characterization of CP performance of pipelines and subsea assets. By eliminating the need for direct electrical contact, iCP minimizes operational risk, reduces survey time, and allows for assessments over extensive pipeline sections and complex infrastructure.
OFG’s iCP technology can be deployed via Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) or Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), offering flexible and scalable inspection strategies. During deployment, the system collects synchronized, high-density electromagnetic data, which are processed to generate detailed maps of current distribution and potential gradients. The result is a comprehensive and quantitative view of CP system health—providing engineers with the actionable intelligence required to evaluate system adequacy, detect anomalies, and plan proactive maintenance interventions.
The insights derived from iCP measurements extend beyond basic compliance verification. By integrating these data into advanced modeling workflows, asset integrity teams can predict coating degradation, estimate remaining CP life, and design optimized retrofit or life-extension programs based on measured, rather than assumed, performance. The technology thus bridges the gap between inspection data and engineering decision-making—supporting more sustainable, data-driven management of subsea assets throughout their operational lifecycle.
In this presentation, Ocean Floor Geophysics will showcase field results from recent iCP deployments on active subsea pipelines and production assets, illustrating the system’s ability to deliver unparalleled resolution and interpretive power. The discussion will highlight how non-intrusive CP monitoring transforms both the understanding and visualization of cathodic protection systems, setting a new benchmark for integrity assessment in the offshore sector.
No sessions match your current filters.
