May Newsletter | Marine Technology Society
IN THIS ISSUE

  • MTS News & Updates
  • Maritime TV, MTS, Cyber-Skilled Mariner “Call-to Action II" Webcast
  • Industry News & Features
  • Call for Papers
  • Upcoming Conferences
Eddies is a free, public digest featuring marine tech industry news and opportunities.
MTS NEWS & UPDATES
LakeBed 2030 Virtual Symposium

Wednesday, June 24, 12 Noon – 1:00 PM (EST)

Join us for this online event that outlines the ambitious goal of mapping the world’s largest fresh water system, the Great Lakes, by the year 2030. The initiative is modeled after the Seabed 2030 effort and brings together a broad and diverse set of stakeholders throughout the Great Lakes. The panelists will discuss the current activities supporting this initiative from both the U.S. and Canadian perspective with additional discussion regarding the development of a new platform serving as a comprehensive data repository.

Moderator:
Hans W. VanSumeren - Director of Great Lakes Water Studies Institute, Northwestern Michigan College

Announcing Global OCEANS 2020: Singapore-U.S. Gulf Coast

With the safety of the OCEANS conference attendees being paramount, the Singapore and Gulf Coast organizing committees are combining forces and invite worldwide community participation to a single virtual conference “Global OCEANS 2020: Singapore – U.S. Gulf Coast”, which will feature a mix of live and on-demand events available to all registrants at a very affordable rate.

Tentatively scheduled for October 5-30, 2020, further details of this first-ever global virtual OCEANS conference will be posted in the coming weeks on the conference websites and on the societies’ social media channels.
Maritime TV, MTS, Cyber-Skilled Mariner
“Call-to Action II" Webcast

Following on the heels of the 2019 conference, MTS' Cyber Committee in cooperation with Maritime TV produced the second Cyber-Skilled Marine “Call to Action” live virtual webcast event on May 19, 2020.

INDUSTRY NEWS & FEATURES
Drone Inspects FPSO Tank. It Could Soon Do It On Its Own


Autonomous drones could soon be used for tank inspections on offshore installations, with data immediately analyzed by AI. This would boost safety and cut costs, as the need for scaffolding, and for technicians climbing on an into tanks for inspection would be eliminated.

Drone company Scout Drone Inspection and DNV GL, the quality assurance firm company, that have been working together to develop an autonomous drone system to cut inspections costs, and to increase safety, have this week shared a major milestone in this area. DNV GL said Tuesday that a drone - controlled by a pilot - had successfully inspected a 19.4 meters high oil tank onboard an FPSO owned by Altera Infrastructure, formerly known as Teekay.

NOAA, Schmidt Ocean Institute Team To Explore; Map Ocean


NOAA today announced it will formalize and expand its longstanding partnership with   Schmidt Ocean Institute  to explore, characterize and map the deep ocean and boost public understanding of the global ocean.

“We are living through a technological revolution that has opened new opportunities to more comprehensively understand the largely unknown ocean,” said retired Navy rear admiral Tim Gallaudet, Ph.D., assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and deputy NOAA administrator. “To take advantage of this, NOAA is building and strengthening partnerships such as the one with Schmidt Ocean Institute, which will help accelerate our mission to explore, characterize and map the United States Exclusive Economic Zone, promote marine protection, and unlock the potential of valuable resources to power the American Blue Economy.”

In the Chesapeake Bay, Saving Seagrasses Can Fight Ocean Acidification

Posted by: National Geographic

The scientists were taking stock of a looming problem facing the 200-mile-long bay: the acidification of its waters, a human-caused phenomenon that threatens the health of the crabs, oysters, and fish iconic to the large estuary.

They started collecting their samples in the recently restored, vibrant underwater grass beds of the Susquehanna Flats near the top of the bay, and motored their way some 60 miles downstream to the deep central channel. When they rounded up their hundreds of data points and analyzed them, they found evidence of something surprising and encouraging: Gently waving seagrasses in the bay are performing a magnificent chemical trick. As they photosynthesize in the beating sunshine, they produce tiny granules of a carbon-based mineral that acts like a miniature antacid tablet.

Teledyne RDI Offering Trade Up Discount for Next Gen Doppler Velocity Logs 

Posted by: Teledyne Marine

After years as proven industry standards, Teledyne RD Instruments Workhorse Navigator and Explorer Doppler Velocity Logs (DVLs) are being retired effective May 2020.

These DVLs have served the industry well for many years, particularly the Workhorse Navigator, which was the first commercially available DVL for precision subsea vehicle navigation introduced back in 1995. To aid customers in their transition, Teledyne RDI is offering customer the opportunity to trade in their older DVL technology for up to a 15% discount on their next-gen DVL products.  

Tidal Turbine Without Gearbox Built as Sector Seeks to Drive Down Costs and Push Innovation

Posted by: CNBC

A business in Scotland has completed work on a new turbine which it claims will drive tidal energy costs down by 30% thanks to design modifications. In an announcement at the end of last week Nova Innovation said that the 100 kilowatt Direct Drive Tidal Turbine, or D2T2, had been built at its manufacturing site in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh.

The turbine’s development has been aided by 2.25 million euros (around $2.54 million) of funding from the European Commission and has been tested both onshore and offshore. One feature of the turbine is that it does not require a gearbox. According to Nova Innovation, having fewer moving parts in the turbine boosts reliability and lengthens the time between service intervals.

Yanmar Develops Autonomous Technologies for Maritime Work

Posted by: Powerboat World

Docking is the most challenging skill in maritime robotics technology and Yanmar has been working on its implementation since 2017, with a first version of the vessel completed in 2018.

"The most important factor with auto-docking is improving its level of precision in positioning the boat itself," explains Yuichiro Dake, in charge of development. "However, the GNSS* system we used for marine navigation was only accurate up to several meters. With the preliminary system, Real Time Kinematic (RKT) was set up port side to send correction signals for accurate positioning.We were able to limit precision errors to within several tens of centimeters," Application of technology used for Yanmar's robot tractors proved invaluable in greatly improving the precision of the system.

This Clever Ocean Power Station Harvests Wind, Wave And Solar Energy on One Platform

Posted by: Science Alert

This summer, the clean energy company SINN Power is showcasing "the world's first floating ocean hybrid platform" - a high-tech buoy that produces electricity from not one, not two, but three sources of renewable energy.

Using waves, wind, and the sun, the  SINN Power floating structure , which can supposedly withstand waves up to six metres high (19.6 ft), is designed to give coastal regions easy access to clean energy solutions. After years of work developing a robust platform and testing power generation using waves off the coast of Crete, the team is  now offering  manufacturers of photovoltaics (PV) an opportunity to test their panels on a floating platform in Iraklio, Greece.

MIT Machine Learning Technique Helps Map Global Ocean Communities

Posted by: SciTechDaily

Sonnewald and her colleagues at MIT have developed an unsupervised machine-learning technique that automatically combs through a highly complicated set of global ocean data to find commonalities between marine locations, based on their ratios and interactions between multiple phytoplankton species. With their technique, the researchers found that the ocean can be split into over 100 types of “provinces” that are distinct in their ecological makeup. Any given location in the ocean would conceivably fit into one of these 100 ecological provinces.

The researchers then looked for similarities between these 100 provinces, ultimately grouping them into 12 more general categories. From these “megaprovinces,” they were able to see that, while some had the same total amount of life within a region, they had very different community structures, or balances of animal and plant species. Sonnewald says capturing these ecological subtleties is essential to tracking the ocean’s health and productivity.

Calls for Papers & Articles
Upcoming Conferences
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