Autonomous Vehicles, the Highlight of Ocean Business 2019

Following the overwhelming number of requests, visitors to Ocean Business 2019 will see a record number of autonomous vehicles taking part in demonstrations, when the show returns to Southampton from 9-11 April 2019. Live demonstrations of cutting edge ocean technology will take place back-to-back on board vessels, in dockside waters, in the test tank and in classrooms; giving visitors a chance to see the latest products first hand in their real environment.

Demand for training and demo sessions is at an all time high, and with a surge in bookings for autonomous vehicles, the dockside will become a marine technology hub in itself. The team has once again included parallel demonstration sessions in the dockside waters, to meet demand, and for the first time is including a new floating pontoon, specifically designed to accommodate the mobilisation of autonomous vehicles. As well as this new dockside facility, there will be an extra classroom session to optimise learning.

Cheri Arvonio, Ocean Business’ event manager, is delighted by the demand saying, “We are incredibly excited about the training and demo programme at Ocean Business this year. The programme is overflowing with innovation and learning opportunities and though details are still under wraps, there will be some unmissable product launches as well!”

Sessions have been booked up in record time by the 360+ exhibitors at Ocean Business this year, with a programme that runs to 184 hours over the three days of the show. The training and demo programme is one of the key reasons that Ocean Business is such a success.

The training and demo programme at Ocean Business 2019 marks a year of exciting progress in autonomous vehicles with brand new technologies demonstrated both on the dockside and onboard vessels. These include dockside demos from: Kongsberg Maritime who will be showcasing their GeoPulse Sub-Bottom Profiler USV and dotOcean with their Cloud linked ASV swarm technology. Teledyne Marine are also hosting a number of sessions featuring the Teledyne RESON SeaBat T50-F and T-20 MotionScan mulitbeam sonars the Teledyne Gavia SeaRaptor 6000M rated AUV and the Teledyne RDI’s new long range ADCP.

Margo Newcombe, Director of Marketing at Teledyne Marine comments “Ocean Business remains one of our top ranked trade shows for Teledyne Marine. As an organization spanning a large number of brands, technology and markets, we value and appreciate Ocean Business’ casual and inviting setting, which allows us to not only display our products, but also engage our customers via hands-on classroom sessions and on-water demonstrations. This show sets the standard for effective trade show engagement”.

Other interesting classroom based sessions to complement deep sea technology include: Ictineu who will be introducing pressure-tolerant and high energy li-po batteries; ecoSUB presenting software to simplify AUV mission planning; and SeeByte who will be demonstrating their human-machine interface technologies for unmanned vehicles. This is just a small sample of the sessions available - to download the full training and demonstration programme, please visit: www.oceanbusiness.com.

Terry Sloane, Managing Director from Planet Ocean/ecoSUB Robotics summarises what visitors find special about the show, “We love Ocean Business because of the scale and atmosphere. Visitors can get to see everything and everyone they need to, as well as attending classroom, dockside and afloat demonstrations.”

All training and demonstration sessions are FREE to attend and visitors can simply book in on a first come first served basis at the show. Visitors can book their attendance in advance if they wish, by contacting the company hosting the session.

Ocean Business will take place from 9-11 April 2019 at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK.