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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - BRIDGES (Bringing together Research and Industry for the Development of Glider Environmental Services)

Teaser

Summary

Working towards implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy for sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors necessitates the development and application of advanced technology to enable smarter, reliable and more cost-effective methods of operating at-sea. Improved operational capabilities are required such as increased autonomy, working at extreme depths, more sophisticated sensing of the water column, the deep-sea environment and their resources. The expected increase in ocean industrialization generates an immediate need for smarter and safer technology to support long-term exploration and monitoring services of the coastal and deep ocean while controlling the potential impact of these activities on the marine environment.
The BRIDGES project (Bringing together Research and Industry for the Development of Glider Environmental Services) aims to address this demand by providing a necessary tool for further understanding, improved monitoring, and responsible exploitation of the marine environment while assuring its long-term preservation.
The main objectives of the BRIDGES project are to develop and demonstrate at-sea two new glider prototypes with improved sensing capabilities capable of operating in extreme depths and designed to provide cost-effective services to key marine markets. This is being achieved by:
â€¢ Further improving on existing European glider technology by development of two new glider prototypes, extending operating capabilities to depths of 2,400m (Deep Explorer) and 6,000m (Ultradeep Explorer),
â€¢ Enhancing sensing capabilities with novel, sophisticated payloads to demonstrate exploration and monitoring service capabilities for a wide range of science and industry domains,
â€¢ Developing on-board and on-shore intelligent management systems to provide a high level of autonomy for gliders and glider fleets,
â€¢ Standardisation of glider data and hardware to facilitate the exploitation and commercialisation of the platform and resulting data products, including integration into national, regional and global observing systems.

Work performed

During the second 18 months of the project, BRIDGES has now completed the detailed design of the Deep and Ultradeep prototypes, now both in fabrication. The design team has worked hard to achieve the design goals of creating light-weight systems with miniaturized mechanical components capable of operating at extreme depths, resulting in final designs with both reduced weight and length compared to the preliminary design. Hydrodynamic wind-tunnel testing led to improvements in vehicle performance by increasing the wing planform to provide better lift-versus-drag and shallower glide path angles (greater distance covered).
Another key design goal for the BRIDGES vehicles was an interchangeable, modular design despite the significant difference in operating depths. This has been successfully achieved, with all internal subsystems being interchangeable between the two vehicles. Most subsystems have now been fabricated and successfully tested, notably the new hydraulic ballast and rudder actuator validated for operation to 600bar pressure. The critical safety drop-weight system has been redesigned as a burn-wire release, providing a more reliable and robust system for full-depth operations, and has now been fabricated and successfully performance tested. The hybrid-propulsion thruster and folding-hub propeller have been designed and fabricated, currently undergoing subsequent performance testing. To ensure reliability of the final overall system, a specific test strategy has now been developed for each identified critical component, to be implemented in the final period of the project.
BRIDGES has also completed the development and demonstration of the deep-sea sensor payloads and their intelligent payload management system, proving full operation using the glider platform control systems, performing simulated dives to 2,000m and validating of sensor payload behaviour and power consumption. The software modules for intelligent glider mission planning and management have also been completed and are ready for real at-sea trials of the glider prototypes.
Another significant result during this period is the of a new low-power, low-cost Smart Cable Interface that standardises a non-standardised sensor. The Smart Cable Interface builds on the extensive planning and development done in previous European projects (Nexos, CommonSense), implementing the requirements set out for standardising access to sensor data and metadata. This prototype cable has also recently been awarded funding by the Cypriot National Fund for commercialisation.
Finally, the exploitation planning for the project has significantly advanced during this second period. A comprehensive market study was completed, leading to a first exploitation strategy that has now been completed. All the project participants have now agreed with the main principals of a general IPR Agreement, which will be finalised during the project last period.

Final results

The ground-breaking nature of BRIDGES is in providing a technology to enable long-term deep-sea monitoring on networked, unoccupied platforms. The long-term networking concept cannot be fully developed by current ROV, AUV and HOV technologies due to economic and/or endurance limitations. For this reason, BRIDGES is further developing underwater gliders to provide a cost-effective, long-term and easily networked capacity to monitor 98% of the worldâ€™s oceans.
BRIDGES gliders go beyond the capabilities of current glider technology; being able to operate in extreme pressure environments, hybrid buoyancy and propeller propulsion navigation to facilitate sea-bed and ocean column exploration, and development of service-oriented smart sensing systems targeting industrial applications. The sensing systems are miniaturized, low-power systems suitable for glider operations and include cutting-edge technology for the in-situ analysis of nutrients, acoustic characterization of the sea-bed, and small particle and organism imaging system.
The BRIDGES technology will improve the scientific capacity to observe and understand the deep sea water column and seafloor by obtaining meaningful information on environmental descriptors and processes. With an estimated 5% of the seafloor surveyed, environmental characteristics and resources from abyssal regions have remained largely unknown until now.
The competitiveness of the European Blue Economy will be increased with the development of Deep and Ultradeep Explorers, which will offer a cost-effective capacity for exploration and monitoring to facilitate the sustained exploitation of deep ocean resources. BRIDGES will demonstrate solutions that can be applied to a cost-efficient ecosystem-based management of marine regions that increase industrial competitiveness and help achieve Good Environmental Status of the ecosystem.
Finally, the establishment of a European marine deep glider infrastructure for research and industry will enable the sustainable and safe operations in deep-sea areas all over Europe and the globe. BRIDGES is contributing to this end by further developing the European glider industry through addition of the Deep and Ultradeep Explorers to their current SeaExplorer glider, the first and only commercially-available European glider, as well as further development of glider piloting and data dissemination software and web tools for promoting glider activities.