Underwater Drones for Seaweed Farm Monitoring and Sampling

Important results from the project

This project focuses on demonstrating an underwater robot for inspection and sampling in an algae farm. The vision for a digital future is to have analysis of water quality and visual data collected by an underwater robot stationed on site. The daily monitoring would improve revenue and enable better planning of activities. In this project we will demonstrate how an underwater robot can navigate autonomously and collect data in the farm.

Expected long term effects

Expected results are algorithms and methods for navigating the algae farm in a robust way with the help of acoustic sensors. This includes: - identifying the exact position of the algae farm given that an approximate position, orientation and size is known - navigating the algae farm consisting of long ropes stretched between buoys - having the ability to change the robot´s behavior during the mission depending on the current situation. The expected outcome is that these algorithms and methods can be used in future robots by algae farmers.

Approach and implementation

The work is divided into 3 work packages that deal with: - development of the underwater robot, - development of algorithms and software for autonomy and simulation tools, and - construction of test site at Kristineberg and implementation of experiments in both, real field test environments as well as indoor tank tests.