Teledyne Webb Research, a leading innovator in oceanographic research, proudly announces the launch of the Slocum Sentinel Glider, set to debut at Oceanology International (OI) in London in March 2024.

The UK’s newest robotics research centre was launched with a special immersive event at The University of Manchester. Hundreds of students, academics, and industry representatives were treated to a display of the latest robotic and autonomous systems to raise awareness of CRADLE – the Centre for Robotic Autonomy in Demanding and Long-lasting Environments.

delResearch LLC, the innovative creator behind the Popoto Modem brand of acoustic modems, proudly announces its selection by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to contribute to the PHYSICAL AND NETWORKING LAYER PROTOTYPE (PNLP) project, under the Broad Agency Announcement N00014-23-S-BC05 BAA.

The US Coast Guard Research and Development Center has signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Zelim, a start-up based in Edinburgh, Scotland, to jointly explore the potential application and effectiveness of AI-enabled detection and tracking technology in search and rescue.

Boxfish Research is excited to announce the official renaming to Boxfish Robotics. The decision reflects the company’s evolving focus and product line, emphasising its commitment to underwater exploration and robotics technology.

The UK’s leading ocean research institution, the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), and Subsea7, a global leader in delivering offshore projects and services for the energy industry, are proud to have received endorsement from the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development for their BORA Blue Ocean Research Alliance®. This has been awarded under the Deep Ocean Observing Strategy (DOOS) Programme, which supports efforts to reverse the cycle of decline in ocean health and bring ocean stakeholders together in a common framework.

To enable deeper dives on underwater missions, Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency, Basarnas, has recently purchased a Hydraulic Atom ROV from UK company Soil Machine Dynamics (SMD).

Pelagic Research Services have demobilized from the Horizon Arctic in St. John's, NL , Canada following the Titan rescue and recovery mission. They have been working around the clock now for ten days, through the physical and mental challenges of this operation, and were anxious to finish the mission and return to their loved ones.

Elbit Systems of America (Elbit America) has been awarded a prime contract by the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific (NIWC Pacific) to develop and demonstrate an autonomous maritime target tracking capability as part of the United States Navy’s Information Warfare Research Project (IWRP). The company will test its prototype in a series of at sea demonstrations over the next twelve months.

PELAGIC RESEARCH SERVICES’ ROV, Odysseus 6K, was immediately deployed from Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic within the rescue viability window early Thursday morning. Odysseus was the subsea asset that first located the debris field referenced by the U.S. Coast Guard.

More than one million tons of munitions dumped in the North and Baltic Seas during and after the two world wars posing a threat to both humans and the environment. So far, trained divers had to recover the ammunition. In the future, however, robots will take on this challenging and potentially dangerous task. The technologies required for this are being developed by the Robotics Innovation Center of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) headed by Prof. Dr. Frank Kirchner in the current CleanSeas project. Thanks to Artificial Intelligence, the robotic systems should be able to detect ordnance underwater and prepare its removal autonomously.

Jacobs and The University of Manchester will create a new international research center to develop robotics and autonomous systems that will play a key role in climate response. The Centre for Robotic Autonomy in Demanding and Long-lasting Environments (CRADLE) will research new technologies for challenging and heavily regulated industry sectors such as space, nuclear decommissioning, energy generation and urban infrastructure.

Boxfish Research announces a partnership with engineering consultants S2 Services to distribute Boxfish remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to the offshore energy, navy and defence industries in Malaysia and the ASEAN region.

Scantrol celebrates the milestone of 100 mTrack units sold in only a few years. The 100th mTrack will be operating on the new research vessel Kaharoa II in New Zealand. The research institute NIWA and Armon Shipyard have chosen a package consisting of Ibercisa trawl and oceanographic winches for the new Skipsteknisk ST-361 design, where mTrack is essential for several of the subsea operations.

Schmidt Ocean Institute launched today its newly refitted 110-meter global-class research vessel for use by scientists worldwide to dramatically advance marine science and push the frontiers of deep sea expedition.

Teledyne Marine announces selling and delivering three Webb Slocum gliders to the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ). NIOZ conducts multidisciplinary applied marine research to address major scientific questions about our oceans and seas. After completing a competitive tender procedure, NIOZ acquired three Teledyne Webb Research G3 Slocum gliders. NIOZ Scientists, engineers, and ship technicians recently underwent operational and maintenance training on the systems with field support staff from Teledyne Webb Research and the UK’s National Oceanographic Center (NOC), which are Teledyne’s European Slocum Service Center. This training was conducted in Spain at SOCIB facilities in preparation for the glider science project to be undertaken initially by the RV Pelagia in the North Sea in the spring of 2023.

The UK is at the forefront of a global shift to using high-tech robots to explore the ocean. The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) BIO-Carbon programme is investigating how marine life stores carbon dioxide (CO2).

The Made Smarter Innovation Challenge, delivered by Innovate UK, has launched a new £6 million late-stage robotics and automation industrialisation funding call for collaborative research and development. Projects can seek grant funding for project values up to £4 million.