Representatives from UVS attended the Autonomous Underwater Technology (AUT) seminar and exhibition in Perth on Thursday 31 October.

The joint seminar and exhibition was organised by the Society for Underwater Technology and the Australasian Hydrographic Society with a key note address by Peter Wademan of Woodside Energy Ltd. Peter noted that the oil and gas business has an important role in shaping the future and utilisation of AUV/CAUV and AUV/ROV Hybrids and he discussed potential roles for these vehicles including the Saab Seaeye Sabretooth.

The seminar included ten interesting papers presented by delegates from industry, academia and defence. Of particular note was two papers presented on Liquid Robotics Wave Glider technology.

Iain Parnum of Curtin University presented work on using Wave Gliders for marine data acquisition and environmental management. He gave examples of two Wave Glider deployments conducted on the on the Western Australian coast: one of 15 days duration covering 475km and a second of 44 days duration completing a 975km mission.

Todd Kleperis of Liquid Robotics gave a thought provoking presentation entitled “How the Oceans Have Turned to Gold” and pointed towards a number of visionary applications for Wave Glider technology.