As part of the JERICO-RI European Infrastructure Jerico-S3 project, French company SEABER will access the SmartBay Observatory.

The main objective of this access period is to showcase the capability and complementarity of the YUCO micro-AUV in providing spatially referenced qualitative salinity data in a real sea coastal environment with waves, currents and tides. These types of data sets are important for monitoring our marine environment.

The YUCO-AUV is a micro Autonomous Underwater Vehicle. It is an unmanned, untethered vehicle that is used to conduct underwater research. The YUCO-AUV micro design is 1 meter long, 10kg in weight and has up to 10 hours of autonomous battery life.

Speaking about the access granted, Luc Simon from SEABER commented "We were honoured and thrilled to be selected for the JERICO-RI European Infrastructure JERICO-S3 access programme! We are looking forward to working with the Marine Institute and SmartBay team to showcase our YUCO micro-AUV system".

SEABER’s YUCO micro-AUV system will be integrated with an INX© navigation system – Intuitive Navigation eXperience,  combined with  DVL - Doppler Velocity Logger. The full system will showcase YUCO’s unique capability to perform expert navigation transects in a complex coastal environment without requiring external physical interventions. All of this will be performed using a small and affordable micro-AUV platform which will prove its readiness for market.

The YUCO-AUV system will also integrate a CTD Legato RBR which is ideally suited for autonomous underwater platforms and will provide accurate and calibrated dynamic temperature and salinity measurements together with the YUCO.

Alan Berry from the Marine Institute said of the access, "JERICO-S3 is supporting SEABER to trial their innovative and affordable micro AUV system for environmental data collection. We hope technologies such as this will lead to an increase in the accessibility and availability of data for organisations monitoring our oceans and in turn contribute globally to our deeper understanding of the oceans. The SmartBay Subsea Observatory is delighted to host this demonstration of new technology"’.  

During the access period at SmartBay the YUCO will perform various missions in Galway Bay such as:

• Navigating together with a Marine Institute Slocum Glider from Teledyne Marine
• Measuring data around fixed observatories of the SmartBay Observatory
• Launch and recovery by multiple means (shore, small vessels, vessel deck)

Further updates on SEABER’s JERICO-S3 access will be shared on social media:

• LinkedIn @SmartBay Marine Test Site
• Twitter @SmartBaySite
• Facebook @Smart Marine Test Site

For more information about the YUCO-AUV, please contact: Luc Simon – luc@seaber.fr

For more information about the JERICO-S3 access programme please view the project website: https://www.jerico-ri.eu/ or contact jerico-ta@marine.ie. The JERICO-S3 project has received funding from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under grant agreement No 871153