Unmanned Safe Maritime Operations Over The Horizon (USMOOTH)

The USMOOTH project addresses regulatory and safety issues appertaining to unmanned Over The Horizon (OTH) operations of Unmanned Surface Vessels and will develop robust vessel behaviours, reliable communications, situational awareness and a robust safety case. ASV has teamed with; D-RisQ, to introduce from the aerospace domain accredited software development techniques; Cranfield University, to further develop collision avoidance algorithms; safety specialist Frazer Nash Consultancy and the Maritime Coastguard Agency (MCA) to provide safety and regulatory expertise. Success in this project will accelerate UK industrial penetration into offshore energy, scientific and defence markets for tasks such as subsea positioning environmental monitoring and maritime security. The approach is to address USV technologies alongside their human operators introducing a holistic solution to robustly address the safety constraints blocking current USV deployment.