SCOOT

New R/V Skagerak delivered at SCOOT’s doorstep

Platform, R/V Skagerak, Research vessel, Sweden / June 23, 2021 June 24, 2021

It has been a long journey, since the new R/V Skagerak was ordered by the University of Gothenburg back in 2013… But now she is ready! And SCOOT is glad to see her right outside of our space.

Overall, a berth at Nya Varvet in Gothenburg is the best alternative, as the quay can be easily adapted and there is proximity to university activities such as the SCOOT project and organisations such as MMT and SMHI.

Göran Hilmersson

Dean and head of the ship steering group

In an era of of robotics and accelerating automation of ocean observations, one might wonder if crewed research vessels really represent value for money? Sebastiaan Swart, director of SCOOT and head of the ship user group at University of Gothenburg, explains:

– Robots are great for going where ships cannot, like under a glacier, and for making long endurance missions. But research vessels are still indispensable. There are a multitude of ocean data collection that require a combination of advanced technology and human hands and eyes. For this we need vessels like the new Skagerak. In the future we will see ever more robots collecting ocean data, but we will not see fewer research vessels.

More about R/V Skagerak:

News post at University of Gothenburg’s web.
Info, specifications and booking of the new R/V Skagerak.
SMEs in western Sweden are advised to contact SCOOT about using the new R/V Skagerak.

New actors, new ideas, new sensors!

Citizen Science, Innovation, People, Sensors / April 27, 2021 December 21, 2021

We must get more players into the water, more actors into doing technology for ocean measurements… That is why we started SCOOT and that is why we:

Put resources in the hands of entrepreneurs.
Connect entrepreneurs with new partners from industry, academia and the public sector.

Let us give you a small example of how it can work:

A new sensor for ocean currents
from Deepoid AB

Anna Willstrand Wranne, leader of SMHI’s marine technology group, tells about an interesting company, Deepoid AB, delivering an acoustic modem to SMHI.
SCOOT’s coordinator contacts Anders Brodin from Deepoid, who says they are working on a new type of logging sensor for ocean currents.
SCOOT’s coordinator also contacts oceanography professor Göran Broström, who think this sounds interesting and writes to Anders at Deepoid.
A joint discussion about scope, technical solutions, ambition, time line and funding ensues. (This time without external funders.)
A new innovation project takes off: Deepoid shall develop, manufacture and deliver 10 current loggers to the University of Gothenburg. The technology is based on position sensing of a pendulum, with minimal weight and minimal power consumption.

Testing in real environment
and communicating results

Last week SCOOT’s coordinator, together with communicator Maria Holmkvist (Centre for Sea and Society) visited Göran and Anders at classic research station Bornö in Gullmarn. We saw Göran cracking theory, while Anders adjusted some of the loggers. Most of all we saw real environment testing and validating data collection (day and night!), new sensors deployed together with traditional acoustic sensors. Göran had brought his mini-ROV, which allowed for inspection and nice underwater photos of the deployed loggers.

Test av sensorer. Bornö. Fotograf: Maria Holmkvist

Anders Brodin. Test av sensorer. Bornö. Fotograf: Maria Holmkvist

Anders Brodin och Göran Broström på Bornö. Fotograf: Maria Holmkvist

Bornö 2021. Göran Broström, Göteborgs universitet. Fotograf: Maria Holmvksit

Test av sensorer. Bornö. Fotograf: Torsten Linders

SCOOT will continue to follow Deepoid AB and this project. Specifically we want to support the next steps: Communicating with more potential users and finding funding for further development, such as including measurements of temperature and light. We believe this robust and easy to deploy sensor is optimal for:

Coastal marine research.
Monitoring around planned or completed constructions, such as aquaculture.

Thoughts? Contact Deepoid and SCOOT:

Small companies using big robot

AUV, Hugin, Innovation, Platform, Ran, Seabed survey / March 31, 2021 April 1, 2021

She is a mighty beast, SCOOT’s flagrobot AUV Ran: 7 meters long, weighing around 2 tonnes and with a sensor suite like a modern research vessel. In 2019 we demonstrated Ran to a number of SMEs, and in 2020 the startup company Marflow AB got a dedicated day of Ran operation. In March 2021 the turn came to three other small companies to operate and get data acquisition done by AUV Ran: SeAnalytics AB, Ten Island Seafarm AB and Bottenlusen / Vinga Konstruktion AB.

There are more SCOOT days in Ran’s calendar this year, in June and in August/September. Do you want to join? Click the buttons below.

"Our start-up has been a fantastic success, and now we want to grow. Through the support of SCOOT and the surveying done by AUV Ran we are well prepared for expanding our installations at sea. And it was great to work with Stephan Hagerling at Bottenlusen."

Cassandra Köbbel & Anna Wångmar Founders, Ten Island Seafarm AB

"The mapping done by AUV Ran was impressive: The details, the speed, the complete coverage of the area I wanted. I cannot see how I could have got this data in any other way. Through SCOOT I have also started an interesting collaboration with Ten Island Seafarm AB."

Stephan Hagerling Founder, Bottenlusen

"The possibility of using AUV Ran for automated sampling of water in the monitoring of invasive species based on eDNA analysis is very important for us. It is a cost-effective way of covering a large area. Such an 'early warning' system is essential to mitigate invasive species."

Matthias Obst Co-founder, SeAnalytics AB

Mobilization & preparations

Breaking: Ocean Infinity acquires SCOOT partner MMT

Acoustic, ASV, AUV, bathymetry, Data, Hugin, seabed, Sensors / March 3, 2021 March 10, 2021

Yesterday came the news that our partner MMT is being acquired by another major within ocean surveying: Ocean Initity, the pioneer in the use of simultaneously deploying fleets of marine robots. At SCOOT we are excited about the possibilities for synergies!

"I’m glad we have found new owner who want to develop MMT in the future and who also has a lot of interesting technology for us to explore. This will not change our engagement in SCOOT or other arrangements we have, e.g. with the University."

P-O Sverlinger

CEO, MMT

Ocean Infinity today operates a large fleet of AUVs, similar to our flagrobot AUV Ran (owned by UGOT, mananged by MMT). Ocean Infinity’s Armada Fleet represents a coming leap in the use of surface-going ocean robots.

Do we need to say that there has been many comments and ‘Wow!’ on Twitter and LinkedIn and other fora… Here is the press release on the matter (pdf):

Ocean Changemaker: Berring Data Collective

Citizen Science, Data, Environmental monitoring, Fishing vessels, Greenland, Innovation, People, Region, Ship of opprtunity / February 23, 2021 December 21, 2021

We are extremely happy to share that Cooper Van Vranken has been selected as an ‘Ocean Changemaker‘ at the World Ocean Initiative, arranged by The Economist Group. Cooper is the founder of the Berring Data Collective. This is indeed a game-changer in ocean observing: Using fishing vessels to bring in high quality data from ocean regions where data is most desperately needed, including around Greenland. Check it out, it is already live!

Cooper was invited speaker at our online conference Ocean Data for Ocean Health in September. Afterwards he joined us for the follow up breakfast webinar on alternative platforms for ocean sensors. Cooper collaborates closely with Patrick Gorringe who works EMODnet Physics and at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. Together they make data collected by fishing vessels available to all users, including ocean and climate researchers, operational forecasters and environmental monitoring agencies. Cooper and co-authors have published their work in Frontier in Marine Science.

“Here for the long run”: SCOOT’s director Sebastiaan Swart’s expanding research at University of Gothenburg

People / January 13, 2021 January 11, 2021

Great news arrived late last year: SCOOT’s director Sebastiaan Swart was awarded 5 years of the prestigious Wallenberg Academy Fellows Prolongation Grant. “I think this makes it official, I am here in Sweden for the long run”, Seb comments. The original Wallenberg grant in 2015 brought Seb to Sweden from his native South Africa. Without Seb’s arrival in Gothenburg we would not have SCOOT today. We are extremely happy for his continuos engagement for the technologies that make ocean science more than a theoretical guesswork.

Seb leads a rapidly expanding research group, focusing on unsolved questions that make the vast Southern Ocean of importance to the global climate. The title of Seb’s Wallenberg fellowship is:”REDUCING FUTURE GLOBAL CLIMATE UNCERTAINTY: Regulation of the ocean’s heat and carbon by small-scale processes in the Antarctic sea-ice regions”.

Read about Seab’s prolongation as Wallenberg Academy Fellow at University of Gothenburg’s website.
Read about Seb’s research at the Wallenberg Foundation website.
Read about Seb’s research group at his own website.

AUV Ran back in Sweden: Join the collaboration, tests and operations in 2021!

AUV, Demo, Hugin, Innovation, Platform, Ran, Sweden / January 7, 2021 March 30, 2021

In 2019 SCOOT’s flagrobot AUV Ran became first to conquer the depths under the ‘doomsday’ Thwaites Glacier. In 2020 Ran’s greatest achievement was the mapping of subsea landslides in the 2000 metres deep Kaikōura Canyon off New Zeeland (read news at NIWA and see their nice Ran pop video below!).

Now Ran is back in Sweden, and as always SCOOT makes her available for entrepreneurs, innovators and SMEs. First out is a group of SMEs during an intense mission week in early February on the Swedish west coast.

Let us know if you want to join the collaboration/testing/operations, already in February and in the planned June session. We are not looking for AUV experts only. We are looking for anyone with ideas for utilising or collecting ocean data!

Ocean Data conference spurs collaboration!

Animal platforms, ASV, AUV, Breakfast, Citizen Science, Data, Demo, Fishing vessels, Innovation, SeaExplorer, Ship of opprtunity, SP SeaCat, Tuna / October 22, 2020 December 21, 2021

September 29th at Nya Varvet and online

What a day… The conference Ocean Data for Ocean Health covered a lot of the themes SCOOT has been involved in the last two years. We hosted the event on September 29th at SCOOT’s space at Nya Varvet in Gothenburg, and we were happy to gather quite a number of old and new SCOOT people and partners.

The programme scratched on the surface of many urgent topics. SCOOT is committed to contribute to keeping up the momentum of this dynamic environment! (Just hosted breakfast meeting on sensors platforms of opportunity, see below.)

Especially intense for SCOOT was the final Block 4, demonstrating autonomous technology for collecting ocean data, see below.

Jessica just before start of conference.

From block 1, keynote by Robin teigland.

Keynote speaker Jannes Gimsbury, block 3.

Torsten talking to Robert Mertens, block 3.

Robots for ocean science, in the electronics workshop.

Olle shows and tells in the electronics workshop.

Olle explains how diving glider Seaexplorer works.

Seacat approaching Green Pilot, Robert stands by.

Ola explains data collection with Green Pilot.

Autonomous vehicles

VOTO‘s research coordinator Louise Biddle and oceanographic technician Olle Petersson explain how gliders on and below the seasurface monitors the ocean.

Play Video

Next generation ocean observers!

Elsa and Jakob from the Science Club in Lysekil show their drifter Dynamene, built by Science Club and deployed in the morning, retrieving data live!

Play Video

Experimental platforms

Ola Benderius from Chalmers Revere lab and Robert Rylander from RISE Maritime research demontrate how knowledge from the automotive industry can be applied in the maritime domain. (Special appearance by flying drone from MMT Swden AB…)

Play Video

October 21st, breakfast webinar on tuna and fishing vessels

We were 6 persons having our morning coffee at Nya Varvet and another 6 joining the video meeting. Picking up from Sept 29th, we talked at some length about opportunities (and challenges) around data from tagged animals and from sensors mounted on fishing gear/vessels. Take home messages:

These data have huge potential to fill serious gaps in existing ocean monitoring programmes, where other and autonomous methods struggle. These gaps include shelf and coastal seas and marginal ice zones.
The cost-benefit relation is very good!
The infrastructure for collecting and distributing these data is rapidly expanding and maturing.
Challenges include subsurface communication and integration into existing monitoring data flows.

Recording from the meeting.

SCOOT’s flagrobot AUV Ran investigates the effect of subsea earthquake

AUV, Hugin, New Zeeland, Ran, Seabed survey / October 8, 2020 October 8, 2020

This is really AUV Ran doing her thing: Deep under, manoeuvring close to the bottom, using her vast sensor suit to scan the environment. This time it is for the benefit of researchers in New Zeeland, investigating the seabed of the 2000 metres deep Kaikōura Canyon. It was transformed by an earthquake in 2016; 850 million tonnes of sediment were displaced!

We expect Ran to be back in Sweden in January. Every once in a while she takes a rest behind SCOOT’s office/workshop at Nya Varvet in Gothenburg. Please contact us if you want use AUV Ran or if you just want to take look. We plan 10 operational SCOOT days for Ran in 2021.

Register now: Ocean Data for Ocean Health

Data, Data Factory, Demo, Innovation / September 17, 2020 September 17, 2020

SCOOT hosts conference about digital solutions for the ocean environment.

SCOOT proudly invites you to an online conference on the 29th of September, about sustainability and innovation in the blue economy. Registration has opened. We are very excited to host this event from our new sea-side space at Nya Varvet in Gothenburg. We will take the opportunity to show what SCOOT is about and how we see the future for ocean observations.

The programme mixes presentations by experts in AI, robotics, innovation and ocean data, with demonstrations of autonomous technology for observing the ocean. SCOOT’s flagrobot AUV Ran will be busy on the other side of the globe, doing work in New Zeeland. But we will show other exciting items, in the workshop and on the water! VOTO are keen to show the how their fleet of diving gliders works (successfully tested in extremely stratified Skagerak!), and rumour has it that MMT wants to use our autonomous Seacat as a platform for take off and landing for a flying drone. We also expect a visit by the next generation of ocean data collectors, from Gullmarsgymnasiet in Lysekil, where the students build their own sensors and platforms.

Recommendations regarding social distancing does not allow for any visitors inside. But but if you are in the vicinity of Gothenburg, take the chance to watch the live demo on site, and chat with technicians and pilots. Starting around 3.30 pm.

The conference is arranged in partnership with Maritime Cluster of West Sweden, Ocean Data Factory Sweden and Swedish Maritime Technology Forum.