Democratising the AUV: ecoSUB Robotics – from concept to commercial reality
ecoSUB Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) were conceived to be a disruptive technology, intended to substantially increase end user access to autonomous systems in the marine environment. Designed to be smart, low cost, small vehicles that can be easily launched and recovered by a variety of methods and potentially used in shoals to rapidly complete tasks, ecoSUB Robotics set out to democratise the AUV.
ecoSUB Robotics has been established to spin out a technology developed by Planet Ocean Limited in collaboration with its academic partner the National Oceanography Centre (NOC). Contrary to the traditional approach of technology development being spun out of academia, ecoSUB AUV development has been customer led from the outset, with Planet Ocean using extensive stakeholder engagement to inform concept design, specifications, and performance requirements, and then supported by the technical expertise of the NOC, leveraging over 20 years of AutoSUB experience. A truly collaborative R&D/engineering team with members from both Planet Ocean and the NOC have worked together throughout the development process. Both parties own IP within the products, with the NOC licencing its IPR to Planet Ocean for commercial exploitation.
This paper will provide an overview of the development journey, funding, stakeholder engagement, projects and commercialisation of ecoSUB AUVs, and the aspiration behind the technology, to markedly grow AUV use in marine science applications.