An unmanned surface vessel has been created, and successfully tested, to monitor excess man-made noise in the ocean. The USV was developed in England by the Plymouth University Marine Institute and the company that the vessel is named after, AutoNaut.




The AutoNaut will be accompanied by Seiche technology called passive acoustic monitoring array, which will be responsible for monitoring noise levels. Once the information is collected, it will be analyzed to see what kind of effects increased noise levels have on aquatic life. The belief is that increased noise can have a significant impact on the communication of animals and can lead to the displacement of those animals from important grounds necessary to maintain their lifestyles.




“Human noise in the sea is of growing environmental concern due to its potential negative impacts on marine life,” said Dr. Clare Embling in an article with Marine Technology News. Embling is a lecturer in the School of Marine Science and Engineering.




Embling added, “Increasing levels of shipping and marine development raise noise levels in the sea and can make it more difficult for animals to communicate, and can displace animals from important feeding or nursing grounds and sometimes even cause physical injury.”




Trials for the vessel, which is five meters long, were completed successfully over the course of two days back in July. The vessel was controlled remotely from Chichester, U.K., the home of AutoNaut. Being that the AutoNaut is unmanned and can be controlled remotely, it can stay out on sea for months at a time, allowing it to collect more information than manned systems.




Photo Credit: 5 metre AutoNaut ‘Jura’ towing a 25m Passive Acoustic Array by Seiche Ltd, in a partnership project with Plymouth University to assess noise in the English Channel

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