Talking underwater
Something like 90 percent of the world’s oceans remain unexplored, but that’s not through lack of scientific or commercial interest. Working in deep water is slow, expensive and dangerous
Something like 90 percent of the world's oceans remain unexplored, but that's not through lack of scientific or commercial interest. Working in deep water is slow, expensive and dangerous
Deep-sea exploration tends to be done via unmanned submarines; these are costly to operate and have limited capabilities.
A new technology developed by European researchers could help to change that. It enables explorers to coordinate “schools” of research submarines that can communicate with each other and work together.
That would be an important step. Most of the autonomous unmanned vehicles (AUVs) used in ocean exploration are highly specialised, cannot travel far alone, and only gather a narrow range of data.
Moreover, there simply aren’t very many of them.
The European GREX project is developing an underwater networking technology that enables individual AUVs to “talk” to each other beneath the waves, sharing information and coordinating their exploration efforts.
A team of AUVs working together in this way can cover more ocean and gather a wider range of data in more detail.
Seawater is a difficult medium for linking up submarine robots and bandwidth is very limited, which affects the quality and range of the signal – measured in the hundreds of metres.
But the GREX team have shown in trials that a line of AUVs can daisy∞chain a signal from one to the other, which means they can stretch out across the ocean over many kilometres.
“Underwater communication between vehicles is a very difficult area,” says Michael Jarowinsky, a member of the GREX project, “so we did not work with individual vehicles, we sought to create a ‘GREX’ box that incorporates communications.”
This box of tricks can be hooked up to the vehicle’s existing controls, which means that an exploration team could simply add the technology to its existing submarines, dramatically increasing their functionality.
There is high demand for the kind of exploration that GREX enables, says Jarowinsky, from studying hydrothermal vents and their rich, alien ecosystems to making new discoveries in biology, geology, magnetism and any number of other studies.
The ocean oil industry should take note too. Exploration and pipeline maintenance companies tend to use remotely operated unmanned vehicles that are controlled by cable.
But that requires a supply ship, which is expensive.
A school of longer-range AUVs equipped with a GREX box could provide huge savings, says Jarowinsky.
