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The continuous development of autonomous and unmanned technology is accelerating the adoption of unmanned vessels for various maritime operations. Despite the technological developments there is still a lack of clear regulatory and organizational frameworks for testing and exploiting the potential of unmanned surface vessels (USVs) in real-world maritime conditions. Such real-world testing becomes ever more complex when operating in multiple nations territorial waters. In May 2019 USV ‘Maxlimer’ crossed the North Sea from the United Kingdom to Belgium and back, carrying goods, to demonstrate the ability of unmanned surface vessels to interact with real marine traffic in an uncontrolled environment. The paper presents this mission in light of the current state of marine autonomy projects as well as the regulatory works conducted by various organizations worldwide.

The paper presents the impact that the XPRIZE Foundation competition, the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, has had on the development of current ocean mapping possibilities. A race for the prize has accelerated the development of innovative seabed mapping approaches that concentrated on new systems engineering or cutting-edge and innovative methods of existing equipment exploitation. The GEBCO - Nippon Foundation (NF) Alumni Team’s entry is presented in details as a state of the art example of mature and robust oceanmapping solution utilizing a high degree of autonomy and providing the possibilities of deepocean mapping that were unattainable before.

SEA-KIT USV Maxlimer successfully carried out a 22 day (24hrs per day), uncrewed survey operation offshore the United Kingdom in July-August 2020. The uncrewed vessel was controlled and manoeuvred from an operation room based in Essex, UK, while the data acquisition was performed by alumni of the Nippon Foundation/GEBCO Training Program, through the Map the Gaps NPO, spread across 10 countries. One of the main objectives of the trans-ocean survey was to test the remote survey capabilities through satellite communications, and also promote the contribution to seafloor mapping. CARIS Onboard, incorporating the new Sonar Noise Classifier tool via the CARIS Mira AI platform, was deployed to autonomously process the survey data in real-time, and provide products that could be streamed daily from SEA-KIT to ensure operations were successful and to help train the classifier as required. The data was post-processed with CARIS HIPS and SIPS using conventional and Ai techniques, and gridded at 10 m. The collected data size was 52.2 GB, surveyed area depth range from 57m to 1362 with 470m mean depth and around 900 km2 was totally covered. CARIS Mira AI with traditional QC approach reduced data processing time to 77% regarding the conventional path.The high-resolution bathymetric dataset provided the first detailed picture of the Brenot Spur, adjacent to Dangeart Canyon. Three major submarine canyon systems can be identified, cross-cutting the continental shelf nearly perpendicularly. The main axis of the first canyon, located at the far northern part of the surveyed area, is oriented NE-SW and becomes wider downstream. Both of the flanks are highly carved by gullies and tributaries, especially along the northern flank, where a complex system is developed depicting well-developed amphitheatric heads, indicating retrogressive erosion. Moreover, this network shows a high degree of incision and narrow interfluves. The second major canyon trends ENE-WSW and is a multi-fed system consisting of three sub-canyons that coalesce at 1095 m water depth. Although tributaries bisect the flanks of this system, they are not mature and have not yet breached the continental shelf, but are mostly confined on the slope. The final canyon is narrower than the previous ones and its thalweg is nearly N-S oriented. Additionally, the flanks of the later differ substantially when it comes to their morphology. The western flank is undulated by linear wall gullies and several landslides indicated by the crescent like rim of high slope values, while the eastern flank is smooth and featureless. Along the SW continental slope, evidence for several old landslide events can be identified. The major failure scars are located right at the edge of the shelf at 560 m water depth.

The methods of data collection, processing, and assessment of the quality of the results ofa survey conducted at the Southern Ionian Sea off the Messinian Peninsula, Greece are presented.Data were collected by the GEBCO-Nippon Foundation Alumni Team, competing in the Shell OceanDiscovery XPRIZE, during the Final Round of the competition. Data acquisition was conductedby the means of unmanned vehicles only. The mapping system was composed of a single deepwater AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle), equipped with a high-resolution synthetic aperturesonar HISAS 1032 and multibeam echosounder EM 2040, partnered with a USV (Unmanned SurfaceVessel). The USV provided positioning data as well as mapping the seafloor from the surface, usinga hull-mounted multibeam echosounder EM 304. Bathymetry and imagery data were collected for24 h and then processed for 48 h, with the extensive use of cloud technology and automatic dataprocessing. Finally, all datasets were combined to generate a 5-m resolution bathymetric surface, as an example of the deep-water mapping capabilities of the unmanned vehicles’ cooperation andtheir sensors’ integration.

The GEBCO-NF Alumni Team is one of the five teams who completed the final round of the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE challenge. This international team is made up of industry experts, advisors from within the GEBCO community and broader ocean community and is led by alumni from the Nippon Foundation / GEBCO Graduate Certificate Ocean Mapping Training Program at the Centre for Coastal and Ocean Mapping / Joint Hydrographic Center (CCOM/JHC) of the University of New Hampshire. The Team is distinguished by its extraordinary diversity with a global distribution of representatives from academic institutions, offshore survey and technology industries, academia as well as national hydrographic offices. The alumni worked closely with partners such as Hushcraft Ltd., Ocean Floor Geophysics Inc., Earth Analytic and Teledyne CARIS as well as equipment supplier Kongsberg Maritime AS to develop and advance the Team concept created for the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE. The project was established and supervised at the University of New Hampshire.The Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE competition aimed to push the boundaries of ocean technologies by creating solutions to the grand challenge of mapping our ocean floor. The competition requirements had to be met within a short timeline of approximately one year per round. The Round 2 final field test was to demonstrate a complete system that could map 250 km2 in 24 hours to produce a grid with 5 m cell size and at least 10 images of the sea floor. Operations had to be remotely coordinated from a land-based operation center. The entire mapping system had to fit into a standard 40-foot shipping container.The aim of the GEBCO-NF Alumni Team has been to leverage existing technology, wherever possible, and to integrate them to achieve the competition requirements. The strategic approach is to develop strong partnerships with technology and services providers to augment the hardware, integration and software needs of the Team.The GEBCO-NF Alumni Team conceived a two-system, Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) and Remote-controlled or Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV), concept to autonomously map the seafloor in a wide variety of ocean environments. Autonomous seafloor surveys, with remote AUV launch and recovery (human-in-the-loop) and with the USV autonomously tracking the AUV for a complete survey mission while being monitored from a remote shore station, were demonstrated to be a viable option for future offshore survey and inspection projects during Round 1.SEA-KIT, the Team’s USV, is an innovative new vessel that allows for autonomous management of AUV deployment and retrieval. In addition, the capability of being a stand-alone mapping platform was demonstrated during the competition using Kongsberg Maritime’s deep-water multibeam sonar EM304 mounted on the gondola below SEA-KIT.The Kongsberg Maritime HUGIN AUV was used for this competition to execute the underwater operations. The Team was confident that competition criteria could be met by overcoming the surface challenges of delivering an AUV to a deep-water location for mapping, coupled to the proven abilities of the HUGIN.During Round 2 Field Test, the team demonstrated automated and remote processing using a cloud-based hosting environment. End users (judges) were able to consume the GEBCO-NF Alumni Team information rapidly and efficiently.The technology, processes and procedures developed for this project are a big step towards larger scale implementation of these concepts. This development of new and innovative technologies that increase the efficiency of seafloor mapping is the Team’s contribution towards helping meet the ambitious goals of the Nippon Foundation—GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project.

The GEBCO-NF Alumni Team is an international team working on solution towards autonomous Ocean Mapping operations. The Team was initiated and led by alumni of the Nippon Foundation / GEBCO training program at the University of New Hampshire. The alumni worked closely with international partners and suppliers to develop and advance their concept created for the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE. The Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE competition aimed to push the boundaries of ocean technologies by creating solutions to the grand challenge of mapping our oceans. The Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE challenge was to develop a complete system that could map 100 km2 in 16 hours at 5 m horizontal resolution grid and produce images the elicited excitement in the general public. The designated survey area for the XPRIZE challenge could be up to 50 nautical miles offshore and operations had to be remotely coordinated from a land-based operation center. The entire mapping system had to fit into a standard 40-foot shipping container. The aim of the GEBCO-NF Alumni Team was to leverage existing technology, wherever possible, and to integrate them to achieve the competition requirements. Their strategic approach was to develop strong partnerships with technology and services providers to augment the hardware, integration and software needs of the Team. The GEBCO-NF Alumni Team conceived a two-system, Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) and Remote-controlled or Uncrewed Surface Vehicle (USV), concept to autonomously map the seafloor in a wide variety of ocean environments. The AUV-USV idea will lead to more efficient, safer and cost-effective seafloor mapping operations. Autonomous seafloor surveys, with remote AUV launch and recovery (human-in-the-loop) and with the USV autonomously tracking the AUV for a complete survey mission while being monitored from a remote shore station, were demonstrated to be a viable option for future offshore survey and inspection projects. The technology, processes and procedures developed for this project are a big step towards larger scale implementation of these concepts.