MANTAS USV Enters the SES Rental Pool

Subsea Europe Services opened the rental book on its next-gen Uncrewed Surface Vehicle (USV) for marine data acquisition to IHO s-44 standards today. The MANTAS T12 USV dubbed Autonomous Surveyor has already been put through its paces with two days of demonstrations at the German Hydrographic Society (DHyG) organised Hydrographentag 2022 conference in Bremerhaven earlier this month.

Built by Florida-based USV manufacturer MARTAC Systems Inc., with deep integration of the Subsea Europe Services integrated Hydroacoustic Survey System (iHSS), the MANTAS T12 is a lightweight, fast and agile vehicle, built for easy deployment.

At 12 ft long, with a draft of just seven inches and an all-electric motor and propulsion system – the MANTAS T12 performance specs are way beyond any current platform with the ability to conduct hydrographic survey to s-44 exclusive order standards.

“We are confident that our new turnkey survey solution will deliver immediate, tangible time and cost savings but looking further ahead, we believe that the application of fast, flexible autonomous vehicles will lower the cost per data package to where we can conduct surveys without a client commission, and that has the potential to transform how end-users look at buying and applying marine data,” said Sören Themann, CEO, Subsea Europe Services.

Autonomy upgrades and new hydroacoustic technologies will unlock a new phase of efficiencies over the next few years. Forthcoming multibeam systems will allow high-precision data to be collected at speeds in the region of 16 knots while advances in AI will allow the MANTAS T12 to adjust its own survey plan according to the real-time data it receives from the hydroacoustic and positioning systems.

The cost per data package can be reduced further when using a ‘swarm’ of MANTAS T12 USVs, as synchronized unmanned platforms can survey an area of the seafloor many times faster than a single manned platform. “Speed is a key factor in optimising marine surveys and providing more value to the end-customer,” said Daniel Esser, Managing Director of Nicola Offshore, which will be one of the first survey companies to augment its provision of survey services with the MANTAS T12. “As an offshore specialist with our own high-speed survey vessels, we are very keen to see how this new USV can help us deliver more value for our clients and potentially offer new ways to work which could make it optimal to adopt lower-cost, more accessible marine data-as-a-service models in the future.”