Louis Dreyfus, MaDfly Launch ROV in Open Sea Operations

Louis Dreyfus Armateurs (LDA) and MaDfly have deployed a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) in open sea conditions, marking a breakthrough in offshore in-water surveys.The operation was conducted on the service operation vessel (SOV) Wind of Hope next to the Hornsea 2 wind farm in England, marking a significant advancement in offshore inspection technologies.The innovative in-water survey was performed…

Wavefront's Intruder Detection Sonar Chosen for Corvettes

Sonar technology company Wavefront Systems has been awarded a contract by global defense company MARSS Group to deliver its Sentinel IDS® (Intruder Detection Sonar) as part of MARSS’s NiDAR surveillance system for a fleet of Corvette-class vessels deployed in South-East Asia.The NiDAR platform will fuse a range of new and legacy sensors – including Wavefront’s Sentinel IDS sonar, navigational radars and infrared cameras – into a single user interface…

Autonomous Multi-Vehicle System Designed for Long-Term Arctic Studies

Long-term data collection is needed to understand Arctic marine ecosystem changes as sea ice melts in response to climate change.However, direct observation is challenging as satellite sensors have a coarse spatial resolution and cannot detect the fine fractal structure of the ice. Deploying human-crewed ships to the area also is difficult due to extreme weather conditions and risks posed by floating broken ice.

Norwegian Parliament Strikes Deal to Advance Seabed Mining

Norway's minority government and two opposition parties have agreed to allow seabed mineral exploration in the Arctic region, they said on Tuesday, in a key step towards full-scale ocean mining.The deal comes as Norway hopes to become the first country to make deep-sea mining happen on a commercial scale and secure critical minerals and jobs despite concerns over the environmental impact and international calls for a moratorium.The amended version of the government's proposal…

Gibbs & Cox to Develop 'Sea Train' Concept

Naval architecture firm Gibbs & Cox said it has been awarded a multi-phase contract from the U.S.' Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop and demonstrate a connectorless "Sea Train" concept.DARPA's Sea Train program aims to demonstrate long range deployment capabilities for a distributed fleet of tactical unmanned surface vessels. The program seeks to enable extended transoceanic…

Smarter Than Us

Geoffrey Hinton, a University of Toronto professor who was awarded the Nobel prize in physics in 2024 for his work in AI, has predicted that AI could surpass human intelligence within 20 years.The pace of AI development is now, in Hinton’s words, “very, very fast.”The latest issue of Offshore Engineer magazine looks at how it is being developed within the industry.The article titled The Higher the Stakes…

Inyanga Hires Delivery Contractors for Welsh Tidal Energy Array

Inyanga Marine Energy Group has announced the winners of contracts to build its 20 MW HydroWing tidal energy array at Morlais off Anglesey in Wales.Inyanga has selected the contracts to deliver its tidal energy pilot project, which is planned for deployment in the first quarter of 2026.Hutchinson Engineering has already been announced as the company which will fabricate the foundation and rear nacelle.Aside from Hutchinson Engineering…

Greensea Hires Harrison as Junior Robotics Engineer

Greensea hired Naomi Harrison, Junior Robotics Engineer, to help advance OPENSEA’s capabilities and ease-of-use. Naomi is a recent graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Robotics Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. During her time at WPI, Harrison interned at General Dynamics where she implemented new robotic solutions for design and manufacturing problems. One of her ideas was pitched to and funded by the U.S.

Kraken Wins Robotics as a Service (RaaS) Contract from Government of Canada

Kraken Robotics Inc. signed a Robotics as a Service (RaaS) contract with the Canadian government for testing of Kraken’s ultra-high resolution survey equipment with the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). This $500,000 contract is funded under the Canadian government’s Innovative Solutions Canada program, and the testing department for this service offering is the RCN’s Fleet Diving Unit Atlantic (FDU-A) based in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Greensea Opens Second Location

Greensea announced the opening of a second office in Plymouth, MA, an expansion fueled by autonomy and subsea navigation tech advances using its OPENSEA platform.Greensea Systems (Richmond, VT) new location, at 10 Cordage Park Circle, Suite 222, in the historic Cordage Commerce Center, once home to the Plymouth Cordage Company, will be the company's first office outside of Vermont and will become home…

Fugro Sells Seep Data Before Canadian Offshore Bidding

Fugro and partner Amplified Geochemical Imaging (AGI) have reported recent success selling licenses for data from a frontier region offshore Canada. The data were acquired during a hydrocarbon seep survey, heat flow and geochemical coring campaign in the large Orphan Basin, situated on the continental margin of Newfoundland.The comprehensive data package is being licensed from both Fugro and AGI and includes multibeam echo sounder data (bathymetry…

Op/Ed: We Cannot Let the OceanGate Tragedy Put a Pause on Ocean Exploration

In the wake of the catastrophic implosion of OceanGate’s Titan submersible during a dive on the wreck of RMS Titanic, the marine technology community continues to question how to prevent such a tragedy from recurring. An obvious option is to impose international safety regulations regarding such expeditions.For manned submersibles, there is merit in considering restrictions based upon technical criteria. OceanGate refused to obtain DVL certification for Titan.

NOAA, Ocean Infinity Form Research Partnership

US-based subsea technology and data company Ocean Infinity said it will partner with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office to develop new tools for ultra-high-resolution ocean exploration and mapping.The four-year Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between Ocean Infinity and NOAA's Ocean Exploration and Research (OER) will aim to expand deepwater autonomous…

UK Royal Navy Developing Surveillance Vessel to Protect Critical Subsea Infrastructure

The UK Royal Navy is developing a "Multi Role Ocean Surveillance ship (MROSS)" aimed at protecting critical subsea infrastructure from threat.In a statement on Wednesday, the UK Ministry of Defence said the ship would come into service by 2024."[MROSS] will be a surface vessel, with a crew of around 15 people who will conduct research to help the Royal Navy and Ministry of Defence protect our undersea critical national infrastructure and keep our lives and livelihoods secure from threat…

FarSounder Enters Brazilian Market

FarSounder announced Ulstein Belga Marine headquartered in Centro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is its newest dealer and their first in Brazil. Ulstein Belga Marine will integrate FarSounder’s Argos series of 3D forward-looking sonars into its product offering.“Our strategy has been moving towards digitalization and sensor related solutions for communication, navigation, sea-state monitoring and optimization of performance…

Sonardyne Wins Hybrid Positioning System Orders in Offshore Energy and Science Sectors

Acoustic and inertial position reference systems from marine technology company Sonardyne have been chosen to underpin the critical station-keeping activities of multiple deepwater vessels operating in the energy and ocean research sectors.UK-based Sonardyne said Tuesday that, through a combination of upgrades to existing installations and the purchase of new systems, four deepwater drillships, a marine…

ecoSUB AUV Dives to New Depths

During a recent deep water trials campaign in Madeira, an ecoSUm25-Science autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) was launched and successfully completed a spiral behavior to provide vertical profiling of the water column down to 2,000m depth, and back again.Based on the affordable ecoSUBm series AUV platform, the ecoSUBm25-Science AUV weighs 12kg and is depth rated to 2,500m. While most deep rated AUV technology is based on large and expensive platforms…

BHGE Opens Subsea Center of Excellence

Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE) has opened its transformed Center of Excellence (CoE) facility in Montrose, Scotland to deliver engineering, manufacturing, test and assembly and services to advance deepwater technology for its customers.The upgraded and expanded campus, which sits on more than 35 acres, was officially opened on Tuesday during an inauguration ceremony with Scottish Minister for Energy, Paul Wheelhouse, as well as BHGE customers and employees.

NOAA Launches $60 Million Ocean-Based Climate Resilience Accelerators Program

The Department of Commerce and NOAA are launching the Ocean-Based Climate Resilience Accelerators program, a $60 million investment in coastal resilience and American small businesses through President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. The program, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, will foster public-private partnerships to help support small businesses that are developing sustainable technologies geared toward climate resilience to attract capital…

PXGEO Acquires Modus Subsea Services

Marine geophysical services company PXGEO on Monday announced it has acquired Modus Subsea Services to boost its subsea offering.Modus Subsea Services is a U.K.-based provider of offshore life-of-field support services specializing in autonomous subsea operations using underwater intervention drones (UID) based on the Saab Sabertooth platform. The company has also developed and commercialized the industry's first-ever UID subsea residency solution.Residency…