Fredericton Company Develops Ocean Floor Mapping Software Controlled From The Cloud
FREDERICTON – Teledyne CARIS will be the leaders of a new project funded by Canada’s Ocean Supercluster. The project is the first Ocean Supercluster project to be led by a New Brunswick-based company.
Teledyne CARIS’s Cloud Technology Project will develop their software so it can be accessed via the cloud and will be used to map the ocean floor remotely.
Canada’s Ocean Supercluster will contribute $944,000 to the $2.1-million project.
“Our products today are usually installed on desktop PCs or laptops with quite high specifications because they’re quite demanding with the computer power needed,” said Andy Hoggarth, Teledyne CARIS’ Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “But if you can put versions of your software in the cloud, then you can use Amazon’s horsepower or Microsoft’s horsepower, so you don’t have as much relying on the local computing needs.”
Moving the product to a cloud-based platform would allow employees to work remotely from home or an office, rather than spending months at sea.
“We’re getting to a point now where maybe we don’t need to put a person at sea for three or four months anymore,” said Hoggarth.
The software will be used internationally, including in Canada. For example, the project partners include B.C.-based Ocean Floor Geophysics (OFG), which specializes in gathering data using autonomous underwater vessels.
Ocean Floor Geophysics and Teledyne CARIS have collaborated before on a project that won the Shell Ocean Discovery XPrize Grand Prize.
“Collaboration is the key to moving technology from idea to execution,” said Matthew Kowalcyzk, CEO of OFG in a statement.
“The benefits of OFG working with Teledyne CARIS have already been demonstrated as members of the winning USV/ASV system for an XPRIZE. We look forward to building on that cooperation with our teammates on this AOSP project.”
While much of Ocean Floor Geophysics’ work is done in Brazil, the crews are in Canada and the pandemic has left them with no way of traveling across borders.
“That practical dilemma OFG had made the need for this project even greater,” said Hoggarth. “I think in this industry in general, we’re slowly moving to remote automated operations, but basically when everyone got told to stay home, either you go out of business or you find a new way to do your job.”
Going forward, Hoggarth expects ocean mapping will continue to take advantage of the technology due to the industry’s slow shift to automation before the pandemic.
“I think post-pandemic ocean mapping will be focused on automation and autonomy and remote operations than it was ever before,” he said.
Hoggarth says that although ocean mapping is an essential endeavor, only 20 percent of the Earth’s oceans have been mapped in high resolution.
“From a scientific perspective we should care – we should know what the ocean floor looks like,” said Hoggarth. “But also, the ocean is a source of food, it’s a source of precious metals that we use in our smartphones, advanced technologies.”
Canada’s Ocean Supercluster says there will be plenty of benefits to the software including providing access to students and to hydrographic offices around the world.
“This is a demonstration of the kind of innovation, opportunities, and the realization of new economic activity that is possible when we work together,” said Kendra MacDonald, CEO of Canada’s Ocean Supercluster. “Knowing the global ocean economy is expected to grow to $3T USD by 2030, I believe it’s our time to emerge as a leader in ocean innovation.”
Liam Floyd is a reporter for Huddle. Send him story suggestions: [email protected].