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what it takes. It’s crunch time.

Round 2 is designed to stretch the un- derlying concepts, innovations and tech- nologies that the teams have integrated and distilled to develop new solutions that will help map even more of the sea- bed. For the testing, all nine new tech- nologies must launch from shore or air and with restricted human intervention.

Once operational, each team will have a limited number of hours to explore the competition area (at depths of up to 4,000 meters) to produce a high resolu- tion bathymetric map, images of a speci- ? ed object and identify archaeological, biological or geological features.

MTR took a brief look at the nine ? - nalists following their announcement at Oceanology International 2018 in our April issue and have since had a chance to catch-up with Dr. Jyotika

Virmani, Ph.D, Senior Director, Shell

Ocean Discovery XPRIZE and some of the minds behind one of the entries, the

USV Maxlimer. Built by the GEBCO-

NF Alumni Team, USV Maxlimer is based on a brand new USV called SEA-

KIT, which can carry a deployable and retrievable payload of up to 2.5 tons – in this case, a Hugin AUV from Kongsberg

Maritime. It’s a unique AUV-USV con- cept, designed to enable more ef? cient, safer and cost-effective sea? oor map- ping operations, as well as providing a platform for numerous applications in a wide range of maritime sectors.

The SEA-KIT vessel itself provides a next generation, long-range, long- endurance ocean capability that is not available today. It is able to operate he Shell Ocean Discovery without assistance for months at a time

XPRIZE is a global competi- and is the ? rst of a new generation of

T tion challenging teams to ad- craft that can truly operate independent- vance deep-sea technologies for auton- ly. Built by British company Hushcraft, omous, fast and high-resolution ocean Sea-Kit, combined with the deep and exploration. The prize will stimulate rich expertise of the GEBCO-NF Alum- even greater exploration and mapping ni Team, the Hugin AUV and autonomy, of the ocean ? oor, helping to uncover positioning and communication tech- our planet’s greatest wonders and re- nology from Kongsberg Maritime cer- sources for the bene? t of humanity. tainly has the potential to provide a new,

The winner will be announced next more ef? cient way to map the oceans. year, but Round 2, ‘Competition Test- Of course the other eight teams all have ing’ takes place in November and De- innovative new concepts to prove, mak- cember of this year. It’s the last chance ing it impossible to predict the winner for the nine teams still in contention to of the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE. prove their design and engineering has But we will ? nd out soon.

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