Paris, April 24, 2024
As part of the “Deep-Sea” call for projects component of France 2030, Arkeocean, leader of a consortium with Bourbon Subsea Services and Seagnal, have been awarded funding to develop DESPOT (Deep Swarm Positioning), a system for positioning and guiding swarms of AUVs. The DESPOT system will allow swarms composed of an unlimited number of AUVs operating at a depth of up to 3,000 meters to position and guide themselves with an accuracy of less than 5 meters. DESPOT will be applied to swarms used for seabed data collection and ocean observation in the fields of energy, defense and the environment.
“Today, underwater exploration is still carried out by a small number of autonomous drones which are pinheads in the immensity of the ocean. DESPOT is the technology that will enable us to scale swarms to thousands of AUVs forming an observation instrument finally adapted to the immensity of the ocean.” Thierry Brizard, co-founder, Arkeocean.
Deploying large swarms of AUVs at sea is already a feat, but positioning and guiding them effectively in the vastness of the ocean is a considerable challenge. Current methods are unsuitable for large numbers of swarms, are imprecise and expensive. Arkeocean, Bourbon and Subsea and Seagnal are meeting this challenge by imagining DESPOT, the new deep, precise and above all economically viable navigation system to equip an unlimited number of AUVs.
The DESPOT concept is based on the combination of a “deep base”, connected to the surface ship, with “Long Base line” AUVs which will guide and position the swarm of AUVs.
DESPOT (Deep Sea Positioning) for France 2030
Arkeocean, provides technological building blocks and its expertise in the design and integration of complete systems. Seagnal’s mastery of sonar and signal processing will be essential know-how for this project. Finally, the presence of Bourbon in the consortium provides the operational know-how and engineering skills critical to the design of a robust system capable of operating at great depths.
France 2030 has identified the ocean and deep-sea exploration as a new frontier of human knowledge, which requires the development of cutting-edge technologies. This is the purpose of the multi-thematic call for projects “Deep-Sea” (Grands Fonds Marins) launched at the end of 2022 by the French state for an amount of €25 million and into which this new financing is included.
On 22nd April 2023, an award ceremony attended by Marie Guevenoux, French minister of overseas territories, and Herve Berville, French secretary of state for the sea and biodiversity, and the eleven companies leading projects as part of the France 2030 “Deep-Sea” program was held at the Hôtel de Roquelaure in Paris, to celebrate France’s investment in “Deep-Sea” scientific research and innovation.
Caption (left to right): Tamara Brizard, co-founder and chief of strategy, Arkeocean; Thierry Brizard, co-founder and president, Arkeocean; and Virginie Brizard, chief marketing and communications officer, Arkeocean attending the France 2030 ceremony on 22 April 2024.
About Arkeocean:
Since 2009, Arkeocean has specialized in affordable underwater observation systems through swarms comprosed of micro-autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for energy, defense and the environment. Arkeocean received in 2023 the Perseus Label awarded by the French Navy (EMM) and the French Defense Procurement Agency (DGA) and the Euronaval 2022 and i-Naval 2022 innovation prizes awarded by the French Defense Innovation Agency (AID) and the Southern French Region.
About Bourbon Subsea Services:
Bourbon Subsea Services (100% owned by the Bourbon Group), manages complex subsea operations and covers 3 main areas: engineering, supervision and management of subsea operations. Its activities include data collection, inspection, maintenance and repair (IMR) of offshore structures at depths of up to 4,000 meters. Bourbon Subsea Services stands out in particular in renewable energies, being notably a world leader in the installation of floating wind turbines, with the first semi-submersible float installed in Portugal in 2011, and more recently operations in the Mediterranean and Scotland. www.bourbonoffshore.com
About Seagnal:
SEAGNAL is a company specializing in signal processing and antenna applications in underwater acoustics. The company deploys its activity from analog signal conditioning to real-time processing implemented on massively parallel architectures (FPGA/GPU). Its customers and partners are the major players in the field (Marine Nationale/DGA/Naval Group/Exail, etc.) for applications in Underwater Warfare, digital communication or tracking. SEAGNAL is owned by its people: a team of experts in underwater acoustics, focused on sonar processing. Due to its size and skills, SEAGNAL is able to meet the needs for rapid development of new functionalities. www.seagnal.fr
