Member - Sea Proven

Inspired by the shape of Polynesian pirogues, the SphyrnaALV reveal remarkable hydrodynamic performance. With their innovative conception and design these unique, unmanned surface boats are characterized by four crucial elements. - First of all, their very high level of stability: due to their asymmetrical hulls, pitch and roll motions are considerably reduced. Such design also provides the specificity of generating very low physical and noise disturbance to the equipment installed on board. - Range is definitely another key component of the SphyrnaALVs. The ships are propelled by an electric engine powered by solar, wind and tidal energy. This energy mix provides power for the propulsion system as well as for on-board equipment without any consumption of carbon energy. In addition, the hulls of the vessels have been optimized to reduce drag and therefore energy consumption. All these specifications allow us to carry out 10- month offshore missions, at a speed of 5 knots. - The Sphyrna's third asset is their lightweight and strong architecture. The Sphyrna-Odyssey mission perfectly demonstrated the ships' adaptability to the very demanding requirements of acoustic missions, as well as their robustness in the severe winter conditions of the Mediterranean Sea in which they were operated between September 2019 and March 2020. Such reliability is even more remarkable as the Sphyrna were also designed to be deployed and dismounted very easily by an extremely reduced team of two people. Transportable in standard 40-foot containers, they can be easily deployed anywhere in the world. - The last specificity of the Sphyrna is their capacity to load more than a ton of material, which makes them precious data collectors, for up to fifty different types of data, including : passive acoustic monitoring, measurement of anthropogenic factors (noise pollution, chemical quality of the environment, radioactivity, etc.), 3D photogrammetry of Posidonia meadows and of seabed, currents, and many other parameters useful to scientists and companies to better understand and manage human activities in a sustainable way. The environmental, societal, economic and political issues of the 21st century will be closely linked to our oceans. And yet, this vast and complex ecosystem is still largely unknown (according according to the International Hydrographic Organization only 10% of the seabed relief is known beyond 200 metres of depth). Based on this observation, a question arises: how to transform human activities and guarantee their sustainability for our oceans if we do not have the capacity to correctly know, track and monitor 71% of our planet? It is clear that the awareness of economic and political decision makers in the field of maritime issues is now accelerating and that many of them are willing to get involved in sustainable actions. To do so, they need technological equipment tested and made reliable for oceanic use, but also resolutely innovative vectors to be able to deploy these technologies on a large scale: the Sphyrna ALVs were designed with this objective. The ambition of Sea Proven is to become the leading supplier of ocean data in Europe by deploying a constellation of several hundred Sphyrna ALVs throughout the world. Operating like sea satellites, they will make possible to draw an accurate mapping of our oceans in real time, thus enriching the data already acquired by conventional tools (satellites, drifting buoys, research vessels). A way to revolutionize global oceanographic exploration.