E!12873 Airborne Instrument for Reliable Shallow Water Imaging and Mapping

The AIRSWIM project, with participating partners Maritime Robotics and CSEM, aims to develop and commercialize a drone based LiDAR system for shallow water mapping and detection. The measuring technology is based on the CSEM flash LiDAR technology. Drones developed from Maritime Robotics will be adapted for the payload into a platform for mapping previously hard to map areas. This technology will act as a gap filler between Maritime Robotics Unmanned Surface Vehicles equipped with mapping sonar, and drones using mapping LIDAR on land. Worldwide, there are large areas of land that is partly submerged and hard to map efficiently and accurately with existing technologies. The prototype LiDAR has been testet in the Trondheimsfjord under real world conditions. In the project, Maritime Robotics has also further developed fixed wing drones for longer range and more efficient flights of the next generation LiDAR system.

Dring the project period, Maritime Robotics has taken a large share in the expanding market of shallow water bathymetry using small unmanned surface vessels world wide. The project results have been presented to several existing users of Maritime Robotics products for mapping, and the interest is good. Several customers and partners are awaiting real life demonstrations of a marketable product to buy the system as soon as it is available.

The objective of the AIRSWIM project is to develop, realize and validate a novel LiDAR based shallow water mapping system. The sytem is based on technologies developed by Maritime Robotics and CSEM, and will in this project be combined and adapted to the application. The co-design of the sub-systems is key to obtain a system that specifically address application-related needs. The project covers the technology at both hardware and software levels in order to offer full-suite of services for the 3D mapping and additional capacities of the system. The system will be validated through subsequent test campaigns during which the main foreseen applications will be demonstrated. The planning of the campaigns will allow the consortium to mitigate risks by validating key specifications stepwise and offering room for incremental improvements in case of needs. For the applications of interest identified so far, a clear need for a fast, accurate and low cost 3D imaging has been established. Thanks to the combination of technologies in the project, the AIRSWIM system will enable covering large areas with much higher efficiency than current solutions in terms of acquisition time, point's density, range precision and man-power. This shall not only permit a reduction of measurement campaigns cost but also an improvement safety due to the replacement of man-operated helicopters by UAVs. At the end of the project, a fully functional prototype will be available together with experience acquired in real environmental conditions that will serve as a basis to establish client services. This will prove the soundness of the concept and its applicability to meaningful situations, which will serve to solicit potentially interested customers.