Innovation is at the heart of LoVe Ocean. The infrastructure itself consists of a range of innovative solutions provided by the suppliers the components that makes up LoVe Ocean. Additionally, LoVe Ocean provides a realistic subsea testbed for new technologies where sensors and platforms can be accessed and monitored in near real time through the infrastructure management system. LoVe Ocean welcomes new projects to use the infrastructure for testing, for more information contact the management team.
Examples of ongoing innovation projects
ARIM – Autonomous Robotic Sea-Floor Infrastructure for Bentho-Pelagic Monitoring
The aim is to establish a science-based infrastructure for continuous online monitoring of the ocean interior including benthic, pelagic and the demersal habitats. Merging cable-based observation technologies, mobile robotic seafloor technologies and image processing and modelling methods into one operational autonomous product will renew monitoring and support the assessment of human impact in the marine environment. Compared to today’s ship-based systems, this new technology will drastically reduce monitoring costs associated to offshore and coastal industries. The benthic crawler system is planned for deployment at LoVe Ocean for research and demonstration in 2020/2021.
ARIM is funded by the MarTERA partners Research Council of Norway (RCN), German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) and Spanish Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) and co-funded by the European Union.
SilCam – SINTEF Marine Silhouette Camera
SINTEF's SilCam has been developed in-house within the department of Environmental Technology, initially to measure large particulate pollutants in seawater. The system has been used both in large-scale experimental subsea releases of oil and gas, and in the field to quantify the distribution of suspended material such as zooplankton, large phytoplankton, mineral grains and marine snow. SilCam is planned to be depoyed on Node 1 of LoVe Ocean in 2020 to demonstrate the system for near real-time subsea monitoring of particles at a coral reef.