A consortium of British marine technology companies has secured Innovate UK funding to deploy non-invasive uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) for water quality monitoring in three key South West regional ports.
Led by marine acoustic monitoring company MSeis, the Smart Ports, Clean Waters project partners aim to transform public understanding of water ecosystems in ports and harbours in the South West of England by providing broad-range, accessible data relating to pollution in the region's rivers and estuaries.
MSeis will be supported by technical partners HydroSurv and Chelsea Technologies.
The end-to-end solution will see a specialist sensor payload from Chelsea Technologies integrated into MSeis' three battery electric HydroSurv uncrewed vessels. The remotely controlled USVs will harvest a range of water quality and eutrophication data within inland waters on weekly deployments by MSeis from their stations in Dartmouth, Falmouth and Plymouth, with the results widely accessible to regional stakeholders via a cloud-based, geospatial data viewing platform developed by HydroSurv.
The partners expect that, during the 12-month test and demonstration campaign, other outputs will include detailed weekly datasets from each harbour, evaluation workshops involving the port partners, and the further enhancement of integration and survey tactics knowledge.
