working in challenging and hazardous conditions. but here at heriot watt university, they re developing underwater robotic solutions to help take the strain. and they ve come up with this the orca autonomous drone. we ve got our scanning sonar, a mechanical scanning sonar. that can see all of these structures and items around the vehicle at quite a long distance. we ve got an acoustic modem. this means that when we don t use the tether, we can communicate with the robot using sounds underwater. and how does it move around in the water, is it with these propellers that i can see here on either side? there are eight thrusters that are used and it can move it in all six directions. you ve got forward, backwards, left, right, up, down, then you ve got roll, pitch, and turn. oh, wow, so it s pretty manoeuvrable then? yes. all this technology allows the device to work autonomously, planning its own route to fully scan a structure with little human intervention. so, the system tha
that little bit safer. with an ever growing demand for renewable and sustainable energy sources, the infrastructure that provides that energy is becoming increasingly critical. now, at present, those facilities are often maintained by human divers working in challenging and hazardous conditions. but here at heriot watt university, they re developing underwater robotic solutions to help take the strain. and they ve come up with this the orca autonomous drone. we ve got our scanning sonar, a mechanical scanning sonar. that can see all of these structures and items around the vehicle at quite a long distance. we ve got an acoustic modem. this means that when we don t use the tether, we can communicate with the robot using sounds underwater. and how does it move around in the water, is it with these propellers that i can see here on either side? there are eight thrusters that are used and it can move it in all six directions. you ve got forward, backwards, left, right, up, down
it s filled with sensors and cameras and it will look at high definition images, feed all that stuff back via satellite to the guys in aberdeen. by deploying these kinds of vehicles there s a potential to reduce fuel by deploying these kinds of vehicles, there s a potential to reduce fuel consumption as much as 95% in comparison with conventional ones. autonomous vehicles are marine robots, really. so, all of our lives are going towards digital and remote autonomous, so this is nothing different, this isjust the transformation of the offshore marine industry into a fleet of robotic vessels that can collect some really cool, significant data that we need. the firm collects and analyses geological data at land and at sea. we re also looking to expand our fleet. this is obviously the fugro 0rca, which is the first of a fleet of three or four that we expect to have by the end of this year,
geological data at land and at sea. we re also looking to expand our fleet. this is obviously the fugro 0rca, which is the first of a fleet of three or four that we expect to have by the end of this year, then we re looking to expand the fleet with larger vessels that are capable of conducting operations in the even more hazardous environment with greater weather endurance limits, and also the capacity to be at sea for that much longer. all clear to move off? all good to move off. here in aberdeen, where the control centre is, the team on dry land connect with the technology which is out at sea. the visual data from the cameras. so, if we were on a wind farm, as you can see, the wind farm coming up from the sea is actually a big structure underneath and it goes to the seabed and attaches there. we will be looking at fixings to the seabed, the metal structure