£1.5m awarded to 11 organisations to develop Innovative Technology and Systems for the Maritime Sector
“The 11 successful projects are great examples of UK technology and innovation, helping the UK maritime sector meet the challenges and goals set out in the Maritime 2050 vision.”
John Howie MBE, Chair of MarRI-UK
The press release article can be found here.
Grant Awardees
| Organisation Names | Consortium | Project Title | Project Summary | Project Value | Grant Awarded | Location | Region |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Autonomous Devices Limited | Lloyd’s Register | Argus | There are clear pain points in the operation of the current and future commercial shipping fleets that would benefit from the immediate progression of robotic systems in accordance with the general advent of smart shipping. Argus will deliver a proof-of-concept demonstration of one such technology, a highly innovative, ship-resident autonomous mobile robotic inspection system, at TRL 5, within 12 months. | £194,372.80.00 | £134,060.96 | Milton Keynes | South East |
| City College Plymouth. | University of Exeter (Renewable Energy Engineering) | Innovative Power and Propulsion for MAV | Project to test a range of marine hybrid power and propulsion systems, exploring design options to improve power, payload, endurance & range of 1.5m marine autonomous prototypes. | £105,665.49 | £52,334.59 | Plymouth | South West |
| Create Technologies Ltd | N/A | Live Maps: Sea | Live Maps: Sea will provide a navigation system for ships when satellite navigation systems are degraded or blocked. This project will see a visual navigation system developed for Unmanned Aerial Systems in defence modified to work with RADAR in the maritime industry. | £133,704.46 | £80,222.67 | Cockermouth | North West |
| Jebb Smith Ltd | N/A | Offshore Charging for Hybrid and Electric Vessels | Our proposed solution is based on our current mooring buoy, Mara Buoy Dynamic. This version will be called the Oasis Power Buoy (OPB). The OPB shall contain an electrical connection allowing CTVs to moor to and recharge from it. This application is to develop, create and test the key aspect of the OPB. Key alliances include Orsted and Tidal Transit. | £235,386.00 | £164,770.20 | Aberdeen | Scotland |
| Liverpool John Moores University | N/A | LADDER – Lookout Awareness of Distractions: the creation of a Distraction Evaluation Ratio | The project will research into the link between lookout on the bridge of a ship and distractions caused by bridge instrumentation. The research outputs will be based on an evaluation of information displayed to the OOW on the bridge of a ship to identify distractions caused and weaknesses in the bridge layout or information display. These outputs are likely to lead to recommendations to the industry for an ‘optimised’ visual scanning pattern for maintaining an efficient lookout as well as development of an ideal Human Interface Design concept for ship’s bridges which is also a part of this project. | £246,122.04 | £169,997.05 | Liverpool | North West |
| Marico Marine Ltd. | N/A | Portonomy – integrating autonomous vessel activity with port operations | This project will develop a risk-based approach to support port authorities in integrating autonomous vessel activity into port operations. It will create a proof-of-concept system to support the implementation and dynamic management of key risk mitigation processes and harmonize communication between autonomous vessel operators and the port’s vessel traffic management system. The project will be based on a real-world autonomous vessel use-case, working with an offshore windfarm operator, an autonomous vessel operator and a port authority. | £232,215.00 | £139,329.00 | Lyndhurst | South East |
| Newcastle Marine Services Ltd | Altran UK Ltd., Strathclyde University, OS Energy GmbH | Re-Charge LOHC @ Sea: Emission Free Propulsion of Offshore Service Vessels | This project will investigate the technical feasibility of converting a wind farm service vessels auxiliary and main propulsion system to a liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) based technology. | £169,796.00 | £116,355.20 | Newcastle | North East |
| PicSea Ltd | Fort William Underwater Trials Centre, Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (OREC), Scottish Association of Marine Science (SAMS), University of Edinburgh, University of York | Global Ocean Surveillance Network | PicSea is building a global network of autonomous underwater drones that will be permanently deployed to collect ocean data on an unprecedented scale. In this project, they will demonstrate their technology gathering survey data for clients in situations where conventional methods would be risky, slow and expensive, thereby delivering data more quickly with vastly reduced risk. They will build on PicSea’s first prototype to construct a swarm of 10 vehicles and conduct a demonstration inspecting ORE Infrastructure. | £245,831.22 | £168,996.63 | Edinburgh | Scotland |
| Solent University | Wartsila | Intelligent Ship Centre (IGNITE) | The ‘Intelligent Ship Centre’ (IGNITE) project will provide an accurate scaled demonstration of autonomous and remote technologies in the maritime sector, supporting the business case for adopting these technologies. This innovative proof-of-concept will bridge the gap between scaled models, digital simulation, and control in an accurate and realistic way. | £262,516.24 | £164,067.24 | Southampton | South East |
| University of Liverpool | N/A | Assuring safe port navigation by applying machine learning (ML) to wave data for automated monitoring of changes in nearshore bathymetry. | The project aims to use a combination of data technologies (satellite and land-based radar) and novel analysis methods (machine learning and modal decomposition) in a unique and integrated way to monitor changes in sub- and intertidal bathymetry to alert port operators to changes in water depth that threaten safe navigation. This project will be delivered by the University of Liverpool, who will be supported by two subcontractors: Marlan Maritime Technologies Ltd. and Satellite Oceanographic Consultants Ltd. | £190,651.72 | £169,231.72 | Liverpool | North West |
| University of Plymouth | N/A | Maritime Cyber Risk Assessment Tooling | Development of software tooling to take published Maritime Cyber Risk Assessment Framework to functional tool kit to enable shipping operators to accurately determine operational-specific mitigation measures required to reduce threat of cyber attack to their business. | £201,694.70 | £161,355.76 | Plymouth | South West |