Unrivalled hands-on demo opportunities at Ocean Business 2023

The three-day show, which runs from April 18-20 at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, is open to all visitors for free by registering online.

This year’s Training and Demonstration programme marks a year of exciting progress and development in the ocean environment. Visitors will have the opportunity to observe cutting edge technology close up and meet the top innovators in the sector, with 130-plus hours of demonstrations on the dockside, on board vessels, in the test tank, and in the classroom.

A major draw will be the latest in autonomous vehicles, with a number of ROVs, USVs and AUVs in action, from Singapore, the US, Norway, Spain, Ireland and the UK. Highlights include first time OB exhibitor Aquatic Drones, demonstrating how cost efficient its zero emission Autonomous Surface Vessel (ASV) is for surveys focusing on inland waterways, hydro dams, ports, coastlines and offshore wind projects.

Advances in AUV technology will be the focus of Singapore’s BeeX, with a vehicle that can autonomously inspect platform structures using a positioning system from UK company Sonardyne. And EvoLogics will demonstrate excellence in underwater search and reconnaissance, deploying a combination of USVs, AUVs, sensor stations, object recognition technology, and underwater data and positioning networks.

Meanwhile, on board Callista, the National Oceanography Centre’s purpose-built research vessel, Chelsea Technologies will present its next generation instrumentation, LabSTAF, to measure phytoplankton primary productivity. Also on the dockside - which will be fitted with a 33m floating pontoon to accommodate the mobilisation of autonomous vehicles - Maritime Robotics will stage demonstrations of its fleet of Otter Pros, with both the Norbit and Kongsberg multibeam systems, the ultimate in unmanned survey platforms.

Test tank and classroom training and demonstration sessions will cover everything from Teledyne’s marine interconnect technology advancements to EdgeTech’s 3D sub-seabed imaging sonar, eBOSS.