Down Under

Fremantle 01 USV offshore in Western Australia. Source: Greenroom Robotics

As an island nation, Australia has one of the largest marine jurisdictions in the world and is responsible for around 4% of the world’s oceans. The nation is also home to the world’s largest iron ore port, Port Hedland, and the world’s largest coal port, Port of Newcastle.

Greenroom Robotics

Hydrographic survey is very critical for a country like Australia, and we're not keeping up with the pace of demand of having key areas mapped, says Peter Baker, Director of Growth at Greenroom Robotics. The company offers a software solution for autonomous navigation that is suitable for new and existing USVs and workboats. The solution can increase utilization of these platforms by enabling them to undertake autonomous assignments.

Using small autonomous craft for hydrographic survey can improve accuracy and dramatically reduce fuel consumption, and Baker is seeing much wider acceptance and adoption of autonomous systems in Australia’s maritime domain. In May, a USV developed by EGS Australia successfully completed its first major deployment offshore Western Australia, powered by Greenroom Robotics’ GAMA autonomy system. Deployed 100 kilometers east of Esperance for a 42-day mission, the USV Fremantle 01 was tasked with conducting extended hydrographic survey operations in remote offshore waters. The vessel operated through rough conditions, including swells of up to 5 meters and winds exceeding 30 knots, and mapped over 1,900 km2 of seabed in high resolution.

Greenroom Robotics navigation system GAMA displayed on a handheld tablet. Source: EGS Australia

FrontierSI & AusSeabed

In October 2024, Geoscience Australia committed to providing data to Seabed 2030 in support of global efforts to compile seabed mapping data into a seamless digital map of the world’s ocean floor. This includes data from the AusSeabed initiative. FrontierSI’s spatial development lead, Lachlan Hurst, recently received the Hydrographic Excellence Award for his involvement in AusSeabed. Hurst was pivotal in developing a quality assurance tool and a survey coordination tool which aims to get everyone who is interested in seabed data on the same page regardless of whether they are interested in bathymetric data, seabed samples, water column or backscatter data. “Sending a vessel out to capture this data is expensive, so it’s absolutely critical to understand where the priority areas are, who needs the data, and what types of data need to be collected in order to maximize value,” says Hurst.

WASSP

In New Zealand, WASSP Ltd offers a multibeam sonar solution that is now widely adopted in hydrographic and survey operations, offering wide swath coverage, real-time 3D seabed mapping and efficient shallow-water performance.
“WASSP multibeam solutions are operating in over 40 countries. Over the last three years, we’ve seen growing demand from the hydrographic sector due to WASSP’s performance and price,” says Haydon Webster, Regional Sales Manager, WASSP. The WASSP S3pr integrates easily with small vessels. It features RTK GNSS positioning, sound velocity profiling and intuitive data tools, achieving survey-grade results without the complexity or expense typically associated with hydrographic systems.

WASSP multibeam solutions are operating in over 40 countries. Source: WASSPLocally, Bay of Plenty Regional Council has become the sixth in New Zealand to implement WASSP technology for coastal monitoring, deploying the WASSP S3pr system for bar soundings in Whakatāne and Ōpōtiki. Previously reliant on single-beam point measurements, the council now gains full multibeam coverage producing a detailed, continuous view of the bar and surrounding seabed. Beyond bar soundings, the system will be used to monitor channels and waterways, guide the strategic placement of navigation aids and investigate reported underwater obstructions, submerged hazards, and approaches to boat ramps and landing sites.

Bay Dynamics NZ

New Zealand’s Bay Dynamics NZ designs and manufactures custom ROVs and USVs for customers worldwide. “We started doing this custom build work in 2019 on a project for the University of Indiana, funded by the US Navy, to develop a hybrid autonomous ROV/AUV that could self-navigate and avoid in-water objects on its own,” says Director and Founder Matthew Mooney. “It had a number of sonar systems onboard, and depth sensing cameras, and its own processing system that we designed and worked in collaboration with the team at Indiana University to create. It’s still being used for research purposes to this day in the US.”

The company is currently making a ROV for an oil and gas client which wants to use it in high flow waters off the coast of Taranaki. Its next custom ROV after that is a research ROV for the University of Waikato which will use it all over New Zealand and take it annually to Antarctica for under ice research.

“We have also been involved with defense applications in terms of USVs, and we are actively working on an open ocean monitoring and defense system that can live at sea, dynamically shift locations and submerge itself for severe weather events,” says Mooney. “This creates a dynamically shifting detection system across huge areas of water. It’s a blend of a USV, observation platform, with ROV tech, all mixed into one, aimed at the detection of submarines and surface vessels in the pacific.”

Bay Dynamics NZ designs and manufactures custom ROVs and USVs for customers worldwide. Source: Bay Dynamics NZAdvanced Navigation & O2 Marine

Back in Australia, a collaboration between Advanced Navigation and marine consultancy O2 Marine saw three Hydrus AUVs deployed in May to capture high-resolution, geo-referenced imagery and video of the Hall Bank reef site in Western Australia. And in June, Hydrus was deployed across shallow reefs off the coast of the Florida Keys as part of a NOAA program aimed at providing a robust picture of the condition of coral reef ecosystems in the region.

“As we look towards more deep-sea missions, we are preparing Hydrus to handle challenging environments more effectively,” says Dr. Alec McGregor is a senior AI engineer at Advanced Navigation. “A key focus area is adding more on-board intelligence by integrating AI-driven navigation and adaptive survey behavior, which allows Hydrus to respond dynamically to unexpected terrains, and GNSS or acoustic signal loss. As global entities double down on underwater surveying for both commercial and scientific research purposes, we can expect AI-powered AUVs to play a vital role.”

Hydrus AUVs. Credit: Advanced NavigationQ-CTRL

Australian quantum software company Q-CTRL has demonstrated its software-ruggedized quantum sensing for navigation technology in a major field trial onboard the Royal Australian Navy’s multi-role aviation training vessel, MV Sycamore. Quantum navigation promises a robust and reliable GPS backup that cannot be jammed or spoofed.
Quantum sensing leverages the physics of light and matter on the smallest scales to enable the detection of tiny signals. Because these devices work based on the fundamental laws of physics and are not affected by drift like other GPS alternatives, their outputs do not change over time, enabling new opportunities where long-term stability is essential.