ES@S has recently added to its existing Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV) survey capability through investment in a Maritime Robotics Otter Platform and a Norbit i77h Multibeam Echo Sounder (MBES).
This equipment is especially well suited to the coastal nearshore, rivers, and inland waters. In collaboration with colleagues from locally based hydrographic survey company, Spectrum, (Phil Emms, Adam Cross and Rob Penrose) who are interested in the capabilities of the Otter, the deployment of the vessel and Multibeam system were tested for the first time recently. The vessel was deployed on a site that Spectrum has experience with, so depth soundings could be compared with previous data.
In preparation for the deployment, the ES@S team commissioned the vessel and tested it in an indoor tank facility within our sister facility, the University of Southampton Marine Robotics Lab. Additionally, they undertook training at the Maritime Robotics HQ in Trondheim, Norway to hone their skills on field operation of the vessel.
Despite the challenging environment in Poole Harbour, which included sea defences and other infrastructure, it was deemed a successful test as both the vessel operations and data collection went smoothly.
Owen McLain, a final year University of Southampton acoustic engineering student and ES@S summer intern, who assisted with the deployment and has been leading the data processing efforts, remarked:
Deployment went really well, the Otter is incredibly agile in the field, and the data collected is remarkably high resolution and consistent with past bathymetric surveys of the area collected by the Spectrum team. We found one or two surprises in the data too, including a boat wreck!
You can navigate around some of the collected data below using the interactive viewer. The second viewer allows you to compare some of the different sunken vessels we found when undertaking the survey, see if you can spot the life ring!
Since undertaking this deployment, we have been using the vessel for monitoring seagrass extent within Studland Bay, keep an eye out for future insights from this deployment.
ES@S is excited for the further opportunities that the Otter enables in shallow water survey work, including assisting Spectrum with future projects. Contact us to discuss how we can help you.