A URready4OS Demonstrative Experiment took place this week in Cartagena (Spain) on board the Clara Campoamor vessel, where a veritable fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles and aerial drones has assembled to demonstrate how will detect fuel leaks in the area close to the port.
The aim of the URready4OS project is to join forces to make a fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) with operational capability to intervene against oil spills in European Seas using new cooperative multivehicle robotic technologies.
Image: upct.es
The project is co-financed by Directorate-General Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection of the European Comission. The fleet of underwater drones is designed to be available to European Civil Protection for the purpose to monitor an in water oil spill.
The experiment was open to institutions and companies from all around the world, which were interested to attend.
Representatives of leading companies were present at the test demonstration, such as Navantia, Repsol and Oil Spill Response (OSRL), which is an international cooperative responding effectively to oil spills wherever in the world they may occur. In total, 20 researchers took part of the demonstration with 5 drones being supplied by Spain, Portugal and Greece.
The video below shows the preliminary experiments within the URready4OS project:
The experiment was coordinated by the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena (UPCT), whose contribution to the project is a marine robot which can function independently for up to 8 hours at a time. It was based on board the maritime rescue ship Clara Campoamor.
Image: upct.es
The ability of the fleet of intelligent underwater vehicles to detect fuel spillages will be checked out using a simulated leak of coloured fluids. The task for the assembled technology will be to find the slick and monitor its development. The experimentation and testing of the underwater drones is set to last until Friday this week.