Subsea Autonomous Systems: Next Generation Technologies
£6million Innovation Competition
13 January, 2020 - 24 April, 2020
Throughout most of 2019 Subsea UK and NSRI in collaboration with the UK Defence Solution Centre (UKDSC), Royal Navy, BP and the OGTC, supported through the UKRI Innovate UK, on behalf of both the MOD and the Offshore Energy Sector has led to the launch of the of a Cross Sector Investment (CSI) initiative. This will address specific opportunities which will deliver joint benefit to both sectors by developing, jointly through their supply chains, a range of innovative emerging and enabling technology solutions.
The Subsea CSI has seen close collaboration between the UK Defence sector and subsea commercial sectors, that specifically focus on areas of mutual interest within Unmanned Autonomous Systems (UAS). Subsequently, all parties have agreed that this Subsea CSI will address specific opportunities that will deliver joint benefit to both the Defence and Offshore sectors by developing, jointly through their supply chains, a range of innovative emerging and enabling technology solutions. As a result, £6.1m of funding has been made available by the various parties to initiate a specific Innovation Competition. In summary, detailed dialogue between the major Offshore Energy companies and the Royal Navy (RN) have identified a shared appetite to deliver disruptive solutions around four distinctive enabling technology within the Subsea Autonomous Systems areas as follows:
- Power & Communications
- Sensors, Detection, Navigation, Processing and Data Fusion
- Deployment and Modularity
- Operations
UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Robots for a Safer World challenge, is working with Subsea UK, NSRI, The Royal Navy, the OGTC, BP and the OGA on a new £6 million competition for business-led projects. Successful applicants will gain a place on a 5-day collaborative workshop to develop their proposals, then submit their final innovative and commercially viable ideas.
The competition details are as follows:
- Expressions of interest Opens – 13 Jan 2020
- Competition Briefing Event 1 – 23 January, London | Hallam Conference Centre, 44 Hallam Street, London, W1W 6JJ (Note this will also be a webinar session that will be posted to Innovate UK’s website).
- Competition Briefing Event 2 – 30 January, Scotland | The Studio, 67 Hope Street, Glasgow, G2 6AE
- Expressions of Interest Close – 12 Feb 2020
- 5 Day Residential Collaborative Workshop – 20th to 24th April 2020
For any enquiries, please email [email protected] or call Subsea UK on 0845 505 3535.