AUV Ran in the headlines

If you are first to go under the under Antarctic ”doomsday glacier” (and making it back!), you will get headlines. SCOOT’s flag robot, AUV Ran, together with professor Anna Wåhlin and her team feature both in rock ‘n’ roll magazine Rolling Stone and in a radio show from PRI’s The World. Links:

As always, SCOOT wants to put hardware and data in the hands of people with ideas. Interested in AUV Ran? Please contact us. She will be back from Southern Ocean in time for hands on workshop 17 – 20 June on Bornö at the west coast of Sweden.


University of Gothenburg oceanographer Anna Wåhlin, director of the Hugin project, waits on the bridge of the Nathaniel B. Palmer for the Hugin submarine to surface in icy seas near the face of Thwaites Glacier.
Credit: Carolyn Beeler/The World

First voyage under Antarctic ”doomsday glacier”

What an achievement! Professor and Scoot board member Anna Wåhlin (bottom left in photo) tweets: “OMG we did it – we went under Thwaites ice shelf!! We have water samples, bathymetry and ocean physics from underneath the 300-500 M thick ”doomsday glacier”. The Swedish AUV Ran was first. So so proud of our team!!” More about this on GU web.

Now the really interesting part. If you are an entrepreneur, innovator or researcher with ideas about measurements in the ocean or data from the ocean, Scoot makes the AUV Ran available for YOU. Interested? 1) Contact us, 2) meet us at Scoot open house, 8 May at Nya Varvet in Gothenburg, 3) join us for a hands on workshop at the classic oceanographic station on Bornö in the Gullmarn fjord, 17 – 20 June.

Workshop on innovation through open data

Scoot and Swedish National Data Service (SND) will host a workshop on open data from the ocean. The purpose is to gather stake holders and investigate the basis for a national ocean data laboratory and data factory, facilitating innovation. Please contact Torsten Linders if you have questions or if you want to give a presentation. Welcome to an informal morning!

Time: March 4th, 9 am, coffee from 08.30

Place: SND, Medicinaregatan 18A, 4th Floor, Gothenburg

Agenda

  1. Welcome and introduction, Torsten Linders, Scoot
  2. Presentations
    • Sending a truck to the moon – deploy-and-forget data factories, Ola Benderius, Chalmers Revere Lab
    • Keeping the data lake clear – tagging data, Per Bolinder, Mattias Larsson, Maranics AB
    • Finding clear water in the swamp – ocean (meta)data at SND, Elisabeth Strandhagen, Swedish National Data Service
    • MakerSpace Oceanum: Building a Collaborative Innovation Environments for Learning, Exploring and Sharing through Open Ocean Data, Fredrik Svahn, GU Applied IT
    • Training robot captains – recognizing a buoy and a bird, Robert Rylander, RISE Maritime Research
  3. Discussion
    • Vinnova call: data lab and data factory as a national resource (“every sector needs a data lab”)
    • SND takes lead? (“mandate and ability within the sector”)
    • Expectations from stake holders? (in the room and others)
    • Long term solutions? (after 2 years of Vinnova funding)

SCOOT takes a dive in the Southern Ocean

SCOOT director Sebastiaan Swart leads the major research project ROAM-MIZ, using sensors mounted on ocean robots/drones to investigate the marginal ice zone in the Southern Ocean. Information and near-real-time output from the sensors are available at the project website. The drones currently operating in the Southern Ocean include the diving (to 1000 m depth) Seaglider and the surface glider Sailbuoy, both available pro bono in the SCOOT offer to entrepreneurs, SMEs and researchers. Interested? Contact us!

SCOOT enters project Find Me – identification and localization of (lost) fishing gear

RISE Acreo (Research Institutes of Sweden AB) will lead a feasibility study aiming for “a cost-effective and passive technique for underwater identification and localization of fishing gear with good precision.”

The goal is to support the relevant problem owners, fishing sector authorities, commercial / leisure fishing, and to contribute to a significant improvement of the management of marine resources for which they are responsible and depend upon.

SCOOT enters Find Me in order to support innovation in ocean sensor technology. As ocean observers we are also acutely aware that everything put into the ocean runs a high risk of being lost, this includes all kinds of measurement equipment.

The other project partners are University of Gothenburg (SCOOT), Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, Fiskareföreningen Norden and Swedish Maritime Technology Forum. Kickoff meeting was held December 11th, 2018, project ends June, 2019. External funding comes from Vinnova (Sweden’s Innovation Agency). The aim of the current feasibility study is to prepare for a for a larger collaboration project.

Use SCOOT’s fleet of autonomous vessels!

Are you a researcher, entrepreneur, innovator or belong to small commercial enterprise? SCOOT wants to collaborate with you!

During the first half of 2019 we will concentrate our efforts on autonomous vessels for ocean measurements. These are the tools of the future in science, monitoring, inspection, surveillance. Opportunities and challenges include sensor integration, communication,piloting and navigation, data processing and management…

During the winter and spring we arrange a series of seminars and hands-on workshops dealing with the different types in the SCOOT fleet of autonomous vessels. This culminates in a four days event in June, when we gather at the Bornö station in Gullmarn. At Bornö our entire fleet of autonomous vessels will be available, together with support vessels, technicians and experts. Do you want to take part in this? Contact us and follow our news!

Exciting times for ocean observers

We have seen it so many times, technology is driving science. Automation and robotics is today transforming how observations are made in the ocean. We can now go to places that are out of reach for humans. We can now make sustained monitoring at temporal and spatial scales that used to be unachievable. Even though the ocean still remains as unexplored as the moon, our knowledge and understanding of the marine domain is now expanding at an unprecedented pace. SCOOT – Swedish Centre for Ocean Observation Technology will amplify this development in Sweden by enabling ocean research and innovation.