C-Power to Demo Sabertooth AUV with SeaRAY Autonomous Offshore Power System
C-Power recently added the demonstration of a Saab double-hull Sabertooth hybrid autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to the six-month sea trial of the SeaRAY autonomous offshore power system (AOPS).
The sea trial will take place later this year, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office and National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the U.S. Navy, to test and validate the technical and economic capabilities of the SeaRAY AOPS at the Navy’s Wave Energy Testing Site in Hawaii.
From shore, operator Hibbard Inshore will remotely program and monitor the Saab Sabertooth AUV during what is reported to be the first ever instance of an in situ renewable energy system supporting a subsea resident vehicle. Equipped with the R2Sonic Sonic 2024 multibeam echosounder, the untethered Sabertooth will patrol the surrounding area to collect sonar imagery of the sea floor and underwater infrastructure. After each mission, that imagery will be communicated back to shore and the Sabertooth recharged via the SeaRAY AOPS.
“The inclusion of Saab’s Sabertooth in the SeaRAY AOPS sea trial is a significant milestone for C-Power,” said C-Power CEO Reenst Lesemann. “I’m grateful to the DOE, NREL, Saab Seaeye, Hibbard, and R2Sonic for their partnership, which was critical to make this first-of-its-kind demonstration possible.”
Testing of the C-Power SeaRAY AOPS is also included in the Navy’s Coastal Trident 2021 program, which is the largest sustained port and maritime security program in the nation and regularly involves the participation of more than 150 public and private sector organizations.
Through the Hawaii sea trial and Coastal Trident 2021 program testing and strategic partnerships with government and commercial organizations, C-Power looks to demonstrate how the SeaRAY AOPS can fill the maritime market’s immediate need for offshore power, energy storage, and real-time data and communications for resident marine systems.