Germany-headquartered Subsea Europe Services (SES) has opened a new research and development (R&D) center dedicated to the development of new integrated, autonomous and digital technologies.
The new facility, located at the company’s premises in the Ocean Technology Campus Rostock, will focus on the development of new autonomous surface and underwater solutions, as well as the digitalization of marine data.
It measures 100 m2 and will be used for further development of autonomous platform capabilities for marine surveys with the Autonomous Surveyor autonomous surface vessel (ASV) and underwater inspection, with the A.IKANBILIS hovering autonomous underwater vehicle (HAUV).
The company’s R&D team will also focus on creating new application-specific AI-powered autonomous control systems and unlocking the potential of swarm surveys featuring multiple autonomous vehicles with crewed or uncrewed motherships capable of managing the entire operation.
“Our expanded R&D department underpins our mission to simplify marine data acquisition as it will drive the development of truly autonomous survey systems that deliver high-quality data at extremely low operational costs, without the need for in-house client expertise or large operations centres to scale,” said Soren Themann , CEO of Subsea Europe Services.
Following the appointment of Dr. Frank Niemeyer as Head of Research And Development, Subsea Europe Services said it plans to grow the department further with new data science, mechatronics, software development and platform management roles to ensure cross-discipline in-house expertise informs the development of truly autonomous survey platforms and new Data-as-a-Service workflows, which can reduce cost and provide cloud-access to high-quality marine data.
“I’m excited to apply my R&D experience in the pursuit of achieving true autonomy for marine surveying as well as supporting the development of the entirely new business models it will enable,” said Niemeyer . “Subsea Europe Services has quickly established itself among the top tier technology companies in this field and I look forward to becoming part of a team with huge ambition and the skills and expertise to make it happen.”
Early in 2022, Subsea Europe Services secured six-figure funding to accelerate autonomous survey technologies development for marine survey applications.
The investment is said to boost the company’s approach which focuses on the integration of new generation smart, AI and machine learning-enabled hydroacoustic systems with diverse survey platforms including AUVs, unmanned surface vessels (USVs), and crewed vessels as survey motherships.