University  of Southampton Ship Science students continue to excel at National level with the Greenwich Forum prize for the 2016 best undergraduate project/dissertation awarded to Xiaoming Yang.  Her work was judged the best out of a strong field of seven and dealt with the important topic of parametric roll which has been a concern for certain categories of large ships in recent years. Xiaoming graduated as top of her class with a BEng in Ship Science in June 2016.

At the end of September FSI PhD student and Ship Science MEng graduate James Bowker and Dr Nick Townsend presented their research at the OCEANS16 conference in Monterey, California.

The conference which featured over 500 technical presentations and industrial exhibitions was a real show case of latest ideas and innovations in marine technology. There were sessions on autonomous vehicle design, navigation, control, communication, sensors, imaging, and hydrodynamics – every abbreviation you could think off ASV, AUV, UAV, UUV, ROV!

James and Nick presented their research which is exploring and developing new energy scavenging technologies that can augment and power autonomous marine vehicles such as AUVs, ASVs and potentially boats and ships.
James’ paper “Experimental analysis of submerged flapping foils; implications for autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs)” explores the use of submerged or tandem flapping foils as a mechanism to convert ocean wave energy directly into propulsion or to generate power and recharge the platform.
Nick’s paper “In situ results from a new energy scavenging system for an autonomous underwater vehicle” explores capturing the undesired wave induced motions (roll and pitch) of a floating platform through a gyroscopic system.

 

FSI PhD student Laura demonstrates that her understanding of hydrofoil is not just academic but also can be demonstrated out on the water where it counts. It has been a busy month or so with her recent award winning paper at the conference in South Africa      Also reported by Landrover BAR   where she has been working on  a placement since last year.  She reports on the Italian National Championships as follows

Last week my helm (Francesco Porro) and I (Laura Marimon Giovannetti) were in Formia racing for the Italian Championship title. The weather conditions were not the best, but we managed to get 5 races in in light wind conditions – 3 of which we won!

We sailed well throughout the week and managed to stay calm during the long waits for the wind. Our final scores were: 1-(3)-1-3-1!
The opponents were extremely strong and we managed to defeat the Italian representative in the Rio 2016 Olympics games (Bissaro and Sicouri) who came 5th at the Olympics! We are extremely happy with our performance and we look forward to go and trial the new foiling NACRA 17 at the end of October, in the hope that the NACRA class will decide the best boat for us to sail in the Olympic cycle toward Tokyo 2020.
 

 
 
Dr Nick Townsend in FSI is coordinating the University of Southampton team that is entering the Xprize for  ocean exploration
More than two-thirds of our planet is covered by water yet we have only explored 5% of the ocean. This physically challenging environment prohibits today’s mapping technologies from exploring the ocean. The Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE will incentivize the innovation required to reach the scale, depth, speed and resolution necessary to illuminate the mysteries of the deep and discover what has remained unknown since the dawn of time.
The University of Southampton team is currently recruiting to our team whether you are a PhD student, member of staff, or a new starting undergraduate or foundation year student there will be a role for all.
Please contact Dr Townsend via his email to find out more!

Dr Jon Downes and Artur Lidkte attended the first general assembly of Bringing together Research and Industry for the Development of Glider Enviromental Services – BRIDGES, which took place in Porto, Portugal.

The Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, FEUP (http://lsts.pt/blog/bridges-1%C2%AA-general-assembly) – hosted the meeting on 6, 7 and 8 September 2016. This meeting aimed to evaluate the project status and share results and solutions between the different partners involved in the project.
BRIDGES is a consortium of 19 public and private partners from 7 European countries (SP, PT, UK, FR, NL, D, CY) and 2 from associated countries (NO, IS). The project is coordinated by ARMINES ENSTA-ParisTech

For more about the progress and news of BRIDGES please visit: www.bridges-h2020.eu

Dr Jon Downes was one of 150 delegates from across Europe that visited the NOC in Southampton for the 7th EGO conference  on autonomous ocean gliders and their applications. The conference, hosted by the NOC, provided a forum in which scientists, engineers, students and industry exchanged knowledge and experiences on the development of glider technology, the application of gliders in oceanographic research and the role of gliders in ocean observing systems. Presentations included work from the EU H2020 Bridges Project developing the next generation gliders (http://www.bridges-h2020.eu/) that the University is contributing to.
 
 
Bridges visits the City of Bridges!
 

One of our summer placement student’s Aaron Page reports on his summer with FSI as part of the Maritime Robotics Lab. This was a paid internship the University of Southampton’s EXCEL scheme we will be advertising similar opportunities for next summer in the spring.

As a recently graduated electromechanical engineer from the University of Southampton, having the opportunity to spend two months at the highly regarded Bolderwood innovation campus with the FSI (Fluid Interactions Group) department was a fantastic opportunity to apply my studies to a real word engineering application. During my time I was working on a new control architecture for the Motors and Rudders on a previously student designed and built vessel called Fortitude this alongside further refitting will lead to long term deployments in the transatlantic and other areas for data gathering missions.
The project allowed me to apply my knowledge of control theory, whilst allowing me to further develop my skills as a programmer. I was given complete freedom to peruse the objective allowing me to approach it in the way I believed would yield the best results, this alongside regular weekly meetings with my supervisors ensured all options, and potential issues were highlighted and investigated. Various control methods were considered and how they could later be integrated with different autonomous control approaches and object avoidance algorithm’s, ensuring future steps in this multi-layered project are as smooth as possible. Being involved so early in this project has also given me the opportunity to identify problems that may be encountered later on in the projects life as well as make suggestions that may alter the direction of hardware selection.
Being invited to the weekly FSI seminar meetings where PhD students gave presentations on their research, furthered my knowledge of a field I had very little exposure to previously. This, alongside the summer events run by the staff and PhD students, has made my time with them very enjoyable.
This internship, run in partnership with the EXCEL scheme, has helped me developed a range of skills that I will now be applying as I start my PhD at the University of Southampton within ECS. I hope to remain involved with the project and look forward to seeing how it develops over the next couple of years.