It is an exciting time in maritime autonomy especially in the UK. The recent Shell XPrize competition stimulated the sector to show how much progress had been made in the ability to survey the deep ocean seabed. Our own Associate Professor Blair Thornton was an integral part of the team that came second. The winning team’s uncrewed surface vessel Sea-kit was built in Essex and recently crossed the English channel autonomously .
Render of Mayflower 400 concept – courtesy of Dr Nicholls Lee, Whiskerstay
An even greater adventure will take place next year when a Plymouth based partnership will attempt to send a USV across the Atlantic to commemorate the Mayflower’s voyage to the America’s in 1620. It is great to see such ambition. We are delighted to see double Ship Science graduate Dr Rachel Nicholls-Lee’s company Whiskerstay involved in the design of the Mayflower Autonomous Ship and its futuristic design. The challenge has excited interest worldwide with Professor Stephen Turnock interviewed by NBC in USA about some of the challenges the Mayflower AS is expected to encounter.
ASV Fortitude under test at Timsbury Lake
Two groups of our final year Ship Science Group Design project students explored some of the challenges and developed our ASV Fortitude between 2014 and 2016. Currently being refitted Fortitude is now one of our group of ASV based in our Maritime Robotics Laboratory led by Dr Jon Downes alongside our ASV CCAT3.
University of Southampton C-Cat3
We see autonomy as central to many future developments in maritime engineering and our new look theme in Marine Engineering and Autonomy for our MSc and MEng pathway reflects this with modules such as our 15 credit Master’s module in SESS6072 led by Dr Nick Townsend on Maritime Robotics which was one of the first in the world when it launched 5 years ago.
We were delighted to see one of our MSc Maritime Engineering Science student John Hayes present his impressive project on the response of a moored floating offshore wind turbine at the final of this year Maritime Masters competition.
He used our 138 m long Boldrewood wave/towing tank with 1:91 scale model of a spar buoy style floating wind turbine platform to investigate the level of motions that would be expected if it encountered a Rogue wave. This was just one of an impressive set of MSc projects finished this summer by our MSc class of 18/19
rogue wave encounters a floating wind turbine at model scale
In the video the rogue wave encounters a floating offshore wind turbine platform in the Boldrewood towing tank at the university of Southampton. A set of waves of appropriate amplitude and phase are generated from our 12 paddle wave maker so they coalesce as a short sequence of extreme amplitude waves at a precise location in the tank. In this case one of our MSc in Maritime Engineering Science had built a 1:91 scale model of a spar buoy style floating platform to measure the motion response with a realistic mooring arrangement. Motions were captured above and below the water using our 12 camera Qualisys system including the mooring line response.
In honour of this year’s theme for World Maritime Day 2019 on 26th September, we are delighted to announce our networking event Empowering Women in the Maritime Community. We will be holding a Q&A/networking session for women in the maritime sector, who will be sharing what they do, how they got there, and any advice they might have. The session will be relatively informal, with lots of opportunities to ask questions and garner advice. More details to follow next month: RAENg Visiting Professor Dr Penny Jeffcoate
The evnt is being coordinated by Dr Penny Jeffcoate our RAEng Visiting Professor – Marine Energy Technologies and Associated Infrastructure.
Penny joined us in 2018 as part of the Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor scheme, alongside her current role at tidal energy developer Sustainable Marine Energy as their R&D Manager. This industry-into-academia initiative aims to utilise the experience of Visiting Professors to enhance student learning as well as the employability and skills of UK engineering graduates, whilst strengthening external partnerships with industry. Under the objectives of this scheme, industry practitioners participate in course development, face-to-face teaching and mentoring of engineering undergraduates at the host university for three years.
Penny worked with Maritime Engineering and Ship Science programmes in 2018-2019 to help develop the Renewable Energy (SESS6067) and Group Design Projects courses for final year students, to give them practice in industry methods, particularly in reporting and critical reasoning. She will be working with the department this year to expand this interaction and give students insight into designing to client specification and management practices. This develop will continue until the end of her placement in 2021 and will hopefully be used for many years of student intake to come. The RAEng scheme also promotes the encouragement of traditionally minority entities in engineering, such as women and BAME. Penny will therefore be organising an event in support of this year’s IMO World Maritime Day: Empowering Women in the Maritime Community.
A 3D image reconstruction generated using BioCam showing an 8 metre long whale carcass that is sandwiched between two large coral mounds.
A team from the University of Southampton has successfully obtained the largest continuous visual map of the seafloor ever obtained in UK waters during a currently ongoing expedition to the Darwin Mounds. The expedition led by co-chief scientists Blair Thornton of the University of Southampton and Veerle Huvenne of the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), deployed underwater robots to map cold-water-coral mounds at a depth of 1000m in a Marine Protected Area (MPA).
BioCam fitted on the underside of the underwater robot Autosub 6000 as it is recovered from the ocean after a successful mission
The autonomous robot, Autosub6000 of the NOC, was equipped with BioCam, a newly developed deep-sea 3D imaging system developed by the University of Southampton under the Natural Environment Research Council’s OCEANIDS Marine Sensor Capital program. During its first 24-hour deployment, BioCam was able to visually map the seafloor at 40 times the rate of conventional imaging systems, covering approximately 50 times the area of Wembley stadium’s football pitch. The example below shows one of the 650,000 images taken during the dive, showing diverse species of deep-sea life sheltering amongst the corals. BioCam also discovered a whale carcass more than 8 metres in length on the seafloor just a few hundred metres from a coral mound. An image of the seafloor taken at 1000m depth showing diverse species of animals living amongst coral
Blair Thornton, Associate Professor of Marine Autonomy at the University of Southampton says, “The large area and high level of detail in the visual maps BioCam collects can help scientists recognise patterns and features on the seafloor that would otherwise go unnoticed, allowing ecologists to compare sites and document changes over time at much larger scales than previously possible.”
He continues, “It is fantastic that the system delivered results from the word go. This was only possible because of a huge team effort, with staff and students at the University of Southampton, local industries, and the MARS team at the NOC working hard together to develop BioCam and integrate it onto the Autosub 6000. Huge credit also goes to the ship’s crew for safely deploying and recovering the system in less than ideal sea states.”
Veerle Huvenne, Team Leader for Seafloor and Habitat Mapping at the National Oceanography Centre explains “typically, scientists map out large scale spatial patterns in ecology by inferring relationships between sonar maps and short transects of visual imagery (photographs or video). BioCam’s ability to continuously image areas in 3D over tens to hundreds of hectares gives us the ability to directly observe patterns over entire habitats. This is a powerful new tool for scientists to better understand these fragile environments”.
Hayley Hinchen, Marine Habitats Monitoring Manager at the Joint Nature Conservation Committee says, “The data BioCam collects could support marine conservation by providing vital evidence at a large scale about how effective measures like marine protected areas are at conserving our environment, especially in fragile, complex habitats that can’t be physically sampled. The evidence gathered could help us understand how damaged areas of the seafloor recover with time in protected sites like the Darwin Mounds”
More information about BioCam can be found at the following website, https://ocean.soton.ac.uk/biocam
Regular updates about the current expedition are posted on www.projects.noc.ac.uk/class/blog
Link to BBC article – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-49753440
The “Future Marine Engineering” is an exciting residential course, developed to inspire Year 9 students aged 13 to 14 about marine engineering and career opportunities in the maritime sector. The course was organised by the Smallpeice Trust with technical content delivered our own inspiring team of post-doctoral researchers, Dr Jeanne Blanchard, Mr Przemyslaw Grudniewski and Dr Yikun Wang, in the Fluid Structure Interactions group at the University of Southampton. Wave Energy Trials in the pool
This year, 95 students took part in the 3.5 days course with the aim to design and build a wave energy-harvesting device and a remote control boat to simulate a maintenance vessel for their renewable energy farms. The objective was to provide a prototype design to generate as much power from the wave energy-harvesting device as possible and to develop a maintenance vessel that could quickly and reliably service the energy farms in an emergency. The students were given a limited quantity of materials to design, build and test their products with their unlimited imaginations. In addition, they were to perform a “Dragon’s Den” style pitch and to defend their designs against rigorous technical ‘interrogations’ from some marine experts. Design underway
To help the students develop their understanding of the marine industry they were given different talks by academics and an industrial expert from Shell Shipping and Maritime. This culminated in a celebration of their achievements at a formal dinner and an opportunity for the students to present their projects to academics and Seafarers UK, who kindly sponsored the course. On the last day, the students have tested their devices and model boats in the swimming pool with great success, before attending the awards ceremony with prizes given by Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute and the Royal Institution of Naval Architects with the chance for the students to join the Institution as junior members.
Ship Science has regularly hosted visits by Arkwright engineering scholars. These students apply for these prestigiuous shcolarships at 16 and are intended to help prepare them to be the next generation of leaders in the engineering profession. We were delighted to see tihs year that one of the visitors wrote some kind words about their visit. http://www.arkwright.org.uk/main/latest-news/post/50-scholars-explore-maritime-engineering
2019 Scjholars inspecting our 138 m long wave and towing tank
Our courses at Southampton in Maritime Engineeirng and ship Science are designed to prepare students to play a leading role in the engineeirng profession associated with the maritime sector. Our degree programmes, both MEng and MSc, uniquely offer direct routes to professional membership and Chartered Engineeirng status with three such professional associations; Institution of Mechanical Engineers Royal Institution of Naval Architects Institute of Marine Engineers, Scientists and Technologists
At the inaugral Maritime UK [follow the link to see a great video]awards held in Southampton on the 19th Sept, attended by the Minister for Shipping Nusrat Ghani (@Nus_Ghani) the launch of the Solent regional hub was formally announced. Key facts…
As a regional hub the compact area of the Solent demonstrates the importance of the maritime sector both to the region and to the UK as a whole. Building 176 on Boldrewood Innovation campus – our home since 2014
Its great to see the Solent being promoted to a wider audience as the excellent place it always has been to live and work. Our Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute has been at the heart of these efforts since it was formally launched in 2012 with its first director Prof Ajit Shenoi from Ship Science. The co-location with Maritime Engineering on our Boldrewood Innovation Campus of Lloyd’s Register Global Technology Centre in 2014 along with partnerships our many other industry partners has been key to its increasing activity
Now led by Prof Damon Teagle SMMI is actively promoting the Maritime 2050 strategy published by the Depatment of Transport earlier this year and which sets to equip the UK to lead the world in maritime. Exciting times are ahead with the technology challenges of decarbonising shipping at the forefront as well as embracing the digital revolution especially in the ever inrceasing use of maritime autonomous systems. Fleur in Action
All of this makes it an excellent time to study Maritime Engineering as part of our Ship Science programmes. Our dedicated admisisons team always welcome enquiries or why not visit us on the next University open day on Saturday 12th October and see our state-of-the-art faciltities including our 138 m long wave and towing tank
As many are aware shipping makes a signficant contribution to green house gas emission. The International Energy Agencys’ Hydrogen Implementing Agreement Task 39 working group met recently on the Boldrewood Innovation Campus to consider the progress to date and the barriers to adoption of hydrogen as a clean and green fuel for ships. The meeting was jointly hosted by Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute (SMMI) and LR’s Global Technology Centre. Working group on the steps outside B176
There is a strong focus among policy makers, ship owners and other stakeholders to work towards safer, greener and smarter shipping. Therefore, the vision for IEA-HIA Task 39 is how hydrogen could play a role in clean sustainable energy for maritime transportation.
The overall goal for the team is to provide knowhow on the use of hydrogen and fuel cells in the maritime sector, evaluate concepts and initiate research and demonstration projects. This will be achieved by creating an exclusive network of suppliers of hydrogen and fuel cells, shipping companies, advisory and assurance and research institutions. The ambition is to contribute to research within the area, be a technology monitor for ongoing activities as well as contributing to a global regulatory framework.
The IEA HIA Task 39 is under the direction of Prof Ingrid Schjølberg NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology with the Southampton lead being Prof Stephen Turnock (CMEE).
IEA HIA Task 39 has 26 partners, across 10 countries, which includes universities and research institutes, authorities, advisory and assurance, fuel cell producers and shipyards.
The University of Southampton’s Future Worlds on campus start up accelerator recently featured inspirational talks by two of Ship Science’s many graduate Entrepeneurs.
Double graduate Dr Angus Webb talked of his experience creating Dynamon a start up providing analysis to help make transport logistics more efficient. For those who are interested in learning about Angus’ journey watch his inspirational talk
Tom Whicher was equally inspiring when describing how he went from studying Ship Science at the University of Southampton to saving the NHS millions of pounds and 3000 years’ worth of missed appointments. Tom Whicher is an NHS Innovation Fellow and the founder of DrDoctor, a digital health company transforming the way hospitals and patients communicate, by using pragmatic, common-sense technology to tackle the financial strain on the NHS – one hospital at a time. Currently deployed across 22 major hospitals around the UK including Guy’s and St Thomas’ & Great Ormond Street. Angus and Tom’s talks were part of a regular series of 20MINFOUNDER talks from Future Worlds. The series brings founders of disruptive startups onto campus to share inspiring stories and valuable tips for aspiring university entrepreneurs.
Hydrogen Fuelled High Speed Marine Transport – EngD Thesis Ivo Veldhuis
Looking to the future of how shipping can reduce its emissions of greenhouses gases and local pollutants such as NOx and SOx Professor Stephen Turnock spoke at an industry event recently organised by SC Group and chaired by Steve Austen. Other talks addressed the regulatory challenge of reducing emissions and in delivering diesel engines that are IMO Tier III compliant. https://proteum.co.uk/videos/
The challenge for today’s ship designers are significant as the future direction of how ships will be powered is not clear. Work at Southampton has considered how best to apply Nuclear technology, possible methods of using hybrid power storage solutions in bulk carriers, and recently on the methods of energy management for hydrogen fuel cells powered vessels. Container ship moored at Southampton Port – would cold ironing significantly improve air quality in Southampton
What is clear is that to tackle the problem will allow significant and rapid innovation. will we end in a world where electric motor are the prime units of motive power or will conventional engine technology but with new fuels such as LNG in the short term or Hydrogen in the long term. While the global emissions is an ever present challenge it is often the local air quality health related issues especially in port cities that appears to be driving the need for rapid change.
A recent undergraduate project used AIS data for month to evaluate over a month who much emissions of NOx, SOx and particulates were emitted due to all the ship movements within Southampton water. The AIS data allows the time and location as well as the likely amount of emissions to be estimated.
