ZeroUSV Demonstrates World-First Autonomous Deployment Of Multiple Surface Drones From A USV

UK-based USV developer ZeroUSV has demonstrated the autonomous deployment of multiple surface drones from its Oceanus12 vessel in Plymouth, calling it a world first.

During the trial, Oceanus12 autonomously deployed two Oshen C-Star surface drones.

The demonstration was carried out under an ongoing UK Defence Innovation-backed programme led by ZeroUSV in collaboration with Oshen and MarineAI.

The trial showed how one autonomous vessel can deploy and support multiple autonomous assets during a mission.

Moreover, Oceanus12 can help operators to verify the location, status, and performance of the deployed systems even in those regions where traditional communication is unavailable, unreliable, or deliberately jammed.

The project consists of Oceanus12, an uncrewed 12-metre surface vessel of ZeroUSV, C-Star autonomous surface vehicles of Oshen and MarineAI’s GuardianAI autonomy software.

All three companies are conducting tests for using these systems in collaboration to serve in defence and security operations.

During the recent Plymouth trial, C-Star lightweight drones were employed to collect the acoustic data.

These sail- and solar-powered drones can carry other sensors to help with the environmental monitoring, defence operations, and the monitoring of the critical underwater infrastructure.

MarineAI’s Guardian autonomy suite includes navigational software which helps autonomous platforms to plan, coordinate, and conduct complicated missions in a very minimal intervention from the operator’s end. Moreover, the software can help in integrating multiple payloads to help with the autonomous deployment and mission operation.

Oceanus12 has been developed as a flexible and modular platform to carry different payloads and be reconfigurable to different missions.

According to ZeroUSV, Oceanus12 is not only about transportation and launching of autonomous systems but about the deployment and supporting of multiple assets along with the monitoring of their location, status and performance.

ZeroUSV claims that this can help in expanding the range of operations conducted by the autonomous systems, save the necessity of sending personnel in hazardous zones and release the manned vessels for other missions.

Mattew Ratsey, the managing director of ZeroUSV, said that this demonstration is a very important milestone not only for the company but for the application of Oceanus platform in operations as well.

According to him, the Oceanus12 has been designed as a highly flexible autonomous platform which can cater to diverse mission requirements and rapid deployment of autonomous systems while maintaining a very small operational footprint.

Ratsey stated that autonomous operations are becoming more sophisticated and complex and that they require multiple systems to work together.

As Ratsey put it, Oceanus12 is able to autonomously deploy the assets wherever necessary while offering more assurance about the location, condition, and efficiency of these operations whenever there are no conventional communication channels available.

According to Anahita Laverack, the CEO of Oshen, the recent demo event is a step towards autonomous systems working together on some tasks which would normally lead to placing unnecessary risks to the people involved in them.

The technology could be used for collecting data from marine and underwater environments which are normally hard or dangerous to reach.

Laverack added that the current success of deploying two C-star vehicles is only one stage of the project.

In the next stage of the project, Oceanus12 will autonomously deploy four C-Star vehicles at once enabling the testing of cooperation of distributed autonomous systems on a bigger scale.

Reference: ZeroUSV