ACUA Ocean and Forssea Robotics integrate ARGOS ROV with USV Pioneer

Plymouth-based marine technology company ACUA Ocean and remotely operated vehicles specialist Forssea Robotics, today announced the successful completion of integration trials pairing Forssea’s ARGOS ROV with ACUA Ocean’s USV Pioneer, with positioning support from Sonardyne, utilising a pole mounted mini-ranger 2 system.

Over three weeks in Plymouth the partners completed more than 40 deployments of the 170kg ARGOS ROV with every launch, dive and recovery commanded remotely from shore. This integration targeted a persistent gap in the offshore inspection and survey market: the ability to conduct robust, high-quality ROV operations from a vessel that can remain safely and reliably on station in conditions that regularly interrupt conventional operations.

ARGOS was repeatedly launched, flown and recovered from USV Pioneer under a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) – on integration and multiple launch-and-recovery sequences. The ROV-USV deployment included operations in two metre waves south of the breakwater with no impact on the ROV.

Photo: ACUA Ocean

How the collaboration brought together complementary technical capabilities

The integrated system is designed around two complementary strengths. First, the USV Pioneer provides a stable launch-and-recovery platform for the deployment of the ROV solution in higher sea states.

The stability enables operations in wave heights greater than equivalent crewed vessels, extending workable days per campaign and reducing weather-related downtime. Second, with a bespoke ‘plug & play’ USV integration kit, Forssea Robotics’ 100% web-controllable ARGOS ROV delivers high-manoeuvrability inspection, survey and light-intervention capability in a compact form factor, deploying a variety of payloads and opening the door to multiple market applications.

During the operations, the two systems operated as a single remotely supervised package, controlled from the ACUA Ocean Remote Operations Centre at Turnchapel Wharf, with Forssea supervising simultaneously from its headquarters in Sète, France and a dive live streamed to Eckenforde, Germany for the Cyber Innovation Hub of the Bundeswehr.

Photo: ACUA Ocean

What the at-sea operations succeeded in demonstrating

Neil Tinmouth, CEO of ACUA Ocean, said: “These trials prove we can open a weather window that conventional crewed vessels cannot work in, giving operators a wider weather window for inspection campaigns. Just as importantly, running inspection campaigns from an uncrewed surface vessel takes high cost out of the work – fewer support vessels, fewer people offshore and far less weather-related downtime.”

More than 40 ROV deployments were made, including eight launch-and-recovery cycles in a single day. The seabed was reached and inspected in >20 metres of water, with up to 35 metres of tether deployed and operations were conducted in one-metre waves, with winds averaging 18 knots and gusting 20 to 30 knots

A test inspection on The Poulmic wreck, a seabed feature and a concrete target block located and filmed in Cawsand Bay were also completed.

Positioning was done by a Sonardyne Mini-Ranger 2 USBL on Pioneer tracking a WSM6+ transponder on ARGOS, with manual and dynamic-positioning station keeping, holding the ROV on task in degraded conditions.

Where uncrewed solutions can enhance offshore monitoring, inspection and protection

The collaboration has aimed to highlight the benefits of uncrewed solutions for offshore energy operators, subsea inspection, repair and maintenance (IRM) providers, security of critical national infrastructure and survey companies seeking to:

• Reduce reliance on large crewed support vessels for routine inspection, survey and light intervention work
• Extend operational windows into higher sea states, improving campaign reliability and reducing weather-related delays
• Lower the cost, carbon footprint and personnel risk associated with offshore ROV operations
• Access remote and asset-dense environments – including wind farms, pipelines and subsea infrastructure – with a scalable, uncrewed solution

Gautier Dreyfus, CEO Forssea Robotics, said: “All of us at Forssea are hugely proud of this milestone and impressed by Pioneer’s sea-state capabilities. Seeing how smoothly the ROV integration and the multiple launch-and-recovery sequences went over the past few weeks was hugely satisfying. My congratulations to the ACUA engineering teams – we are excited to see what comes next.”