Revealing Hidden Depths - the Seabed 2030 Podcast
Monthly podcast about the Nippon Foundation - GEBCO 'Seabed 2030' Project - an international project to map the global seafloor by 2030, endorsed as a flagship UN Ocean Decade Programme.
Each month we bring news about the project, interviews with our ocean mapping community and updates about the technology and methods used.
Find out more at www.seabed2030.org
If you have ocean data you'd like to share please join our community - contact partnerships@seabed2030.org
Podcast edited by Steve Hall, music by Emily Boddy
Revealing Hidden Depths - the Seabed 2030 Podcast
Episode 24 - EcoSUB Robotics - Compact AUVs for ocean science survey
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For the 24th episode of the Seabed 2030 Podcast, recorded in August 2026, Head of Partnerships Steve Hall speaks to Iain Vincent, Director & General Manager of ecoSUB Robotics, a specialist manufacturer of highly portable yet capable autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) based in the UK who have customers across the global ocean science and survey community.
Iain is a graduate in Marine Environmental Science from the University of Portsmouth, and was a founder member of the Society of Maritime Industries Marine Autonomous Systems Group who have done valuable work to establish safe operating procedures for autonomous vehicles in crowded coastal waters.
In 2016 Iain was appointed as a Director of ecoSUB Robotics Limited, when the company was formed to spin out low cost AUV technology developed in collaboration between Planet Ocean and the National Oceanography Centre (NOC). He was appointed General Manager in 2022.
In this interview we learn about the design of the ecoSUB family of vehicles, their range and depth capabilities, the kind of sensor, visual and navigation technologies that they use, and how the company works with customers to ensure that operators can feel confident using systems to carry out science and ocean survey work straight out of the box.
Unlike large AUVs, that require a specialist mother ship and cranes or gantries, even the largest of the ecoSUB family can be carried by two people, and launched from small boats or the shore. The smallest system is one-person portable and can even be launched from aircraft or surface drone survey systems.
ecoSUB and parent company Planet Ocean are strongly engaged in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for sustainable development as technology partners to institutions and universities, and have a track record of supporting the work of Marine Learned Societies such as the Challenger Society for Marine Science and Society for Underwater Technology and others.
They became Industry Partners with Seabed 2030 in 2023 and their products directly contribute bathymetric data to help deliver the first global map of the ocean floor.
For more information contact iain@ecosub.uk or sales@ecosub.uk
To find out more about Seabed 2030 see www.seabed2030.org and to contact the editor of the podcast please mail Steve Hall here.
Revealing Hidden Depths - the Seabed 2030 Podcast
Find out more about our project at www.seabed2030.org
Brought to you by the Nippon Foundation and GEBCO
Start and Introduction to episode 24
SPEAKER_00Hello and welcome to the Seabed 2030 podcast brought to you by the Nippon Foundation and general bathymetric chart of the Ocean Seabed 2030 project. Each month we'll bring you news, interviews, and progress reports on our mission to map the seafloor of the entire planet, a task never before completed, and a flagship project of the UN decade of ocean science for sustainable development.
SPEAKER_02Hello and welcome to episode 24 of the Seabeds 2030 podcast. My name's Steve Hall. I am head of partnerships and I host and edit this. Please get back to me on partnerships at seabed2030.org if you've got any questions or suggestions for future episodes. My
Introducing Iain Vincent, Director & General Manager ecoSUB Robotics; origins of ecoSUB micro-AUV
SPEAKER_02guest this month is Ian Vincent, and he's director and general manager of EcoSub Robotics. So hi Ian. How on earth did you end up in this weird and wonderful field of work? Hi there, Steve.
SPEAKER_01Good to see you. So I've been working with uh Comical Planet Ocean Limited uh since 2012, so it makes me about 14 years old with them. Back in 2014, uh we sat down and had a conversation with our friends at NOC, National Oceanography Center in Southampton. They had uh some ideas around uh developing a concept that had been devised in around about 2009 to produce a micro AUV system, so very small AUV. The original concept was very much geared around uh airdropping uh an AUV system. And yeah, that conversation kind of took root. We found an Innovate UK uh project that we could bid for, uh, wrote the proposal, and we got uh a project funded that enabled us to develop this technology in partnership with NOC. Uh so we had a joint engineering team of Planet Ocean and National Oceanography Center employees from their Mars department where they've been developing AutoSub for the last 20-25 years prior to that. So we had a great opportunity to uh dilute all of the experience uh that NOC had gained with uh the autosub program uh down into uh into what became EcoSubrobotics. We initially developed uh a very small four kilogram platform, but then they grew a little bit, and we had a 12-kilogram platform, our EcoSubmilly, and really kind of the rest is history. It's been uh an exciting decade of development uh for EcoSubrobotics. Uh we've pivoted several times on our technology direction and and how we do things, and uh we've got uh an exciting lineup of AUVs now that uh are really designed around affordability and accessibility to a much wider market than we've previously seen, but uh but focused on uh delivering high levels of capability now. So we've we've really pivoted from just doing small, cheap AUV systems to doing affordable systems that deliver real uh value in terms of their capability to image C bed uh and also collect science data uh and have properly geo-referenced output from the systems.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and I I certainly remember I was working at the National Centre in those days. And those early models of EcoSub looked like they were designed to be dropped out of a Sonar Boy launcher on a marine patrol aircraft or a helicopter. They they really were that small, weren't they? They were very, very compact.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, a bit more. The EcoSub Micro is is still maintains the uh the A-si Sonar by tube dimensions. Uh that we had to engineer a solution that that could have no sticky outie bits, so no control surfaces. Uh the antenna came straight out of the tail. So uh yeah, they were they were purposely built to be tube launched from from various platforms.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and how can your customers done that? Uh you know, are there people that are airdropping?
SPEAKER_01We've uh the University of Southampton did quite a lot of work on on airdropping the system from uh their fixed-wing UAB platform. Uh we have had uh ASB Global at the time, which is now L3 Harris. They designed a launch mechanism for the vehicles to be ejected from uh from off the back of their USB platform. Uh and also Sawula Robotics did some work uh a little while ago uh launching the EcoSub micro vehicles from their I think it's the Solus AUB, so their XL AUV system.
Describe an ecoSUB AUV
SPEAKER_01Yes. So they're able to deploy them from uh from their mothership.
SPEAKER_02So yeah. So before you mention it, somebody who's never seen an eco sub, and you'll certainly see them if you ever turn up to any of the uh trade shows, because there's there's almost always a planet ocean stroke eco-sub robotics display there. Uh how how would you describe an eco-sub?
SPEAKER_01Uh so an eco-sub is essentially uh an anodized aluminium pressure vessel, so uh metal tube. Uh it's unique in the fact that we use an internal moving mass for pitch control. Uh so we actually move the battery carriage backwards and forwards control our pitch, which means we don't have sticky outie wings uh that AUVs typically use. Uh so you've got a metal tube, and then uh fore and aft you have some uh 3D printed plastic. The nose cone contains most of the payload uh on a typical vehicle. Uh, and then the rear section, the uh the tail section, has uh has a propulsion system and antenna mount. So uh an antenna comes off the back and uh and also the propeller, which is ducted, uh, lives at the rear end. So uh metal tube with with plastic section front and after the vehicle. Uh typically they were, or certainly for the first 10 years or so, were constrained to small sizes, so maximum length was around about uh just over one metre. Uh but what we've been seeing more recently is is as we engage a lot more with project engineering, so taking lists of customer requirements, uh, we're then uh re-engineering the systems around them. So we've seen uh quite a lot of uh change in terms of the size of these platforms. Uh so they're now kind of typically one and a half meters long, uh carrying around about 700 uh watt hours of of stored energy on board. Uh and then we go into our larger class RDXL vehicles, which can be two to three meters long, uh weigh up to kind of 40 kilos, uh have up to two kilowatt hours of of stored energy on board. So um there's quite a lot of deviation in in the product itself now, which uh which enables people to target different application areas and uh uh working.
SPEAKER_02And is is it fair to say that all of the eco subproduct range are capable of being carried by no more than two people?
SPEAKER_01Indeed, uh for now, absolutely. Uh we are not restricted by portability. Uh we have engineered a system that is uh small, uh and and I think that's a really nice starting point. One of the things we've learned over the years is it's much easier to build something small and then make it bigger than it is to start with something large and try and make it smaller. So uh uh we we've kind of got a natural advantage there in that we started developing very smaller UV systems. Uh it is much uh easier to take them larger. Most of our systems are one-person portable, so uh you can pick them up and throw them over the sides of the vessel. Uh our DXL we're classifying as a two-person lift. So uh again, it can all be done by hand. You can launch and and uh recover these systems with just two people or a couple of boat hooks. Uh no need for kind of heavy lifting gear at this stage, but
What sort of range and endurance do ecoSUB AUVs offer users?
SPEAKER_01uh we're also open to developing much larger systems as well.
SPEAKER_02And typically, certainly with your existing customer base, what what kind of endurance or range are people operating the Rico subs over?
SPEAKER_01So we're mostly designing systems around day operation. So uh depending very much on the payload configuration that we've got on, eight hours is a very typical operating uh time for a vehicle. Uh we have systems that will go much longer if they've got light payload on uh with relatively low pay uh uh power demand. You could be running it for kind of 15 hours or so. Uh but most people are keen to get as much kit as they can on board the system and that obviously consumes some of the energy budget, so uh typically around uh around eight hours. Uh, we have a few systems out there that won't go that long. You know, they're probably restricted to about five hours because they're they're just carrying so much kit that they're earning through that stored energy much faster.
SPEAKER_02And and do all of them or any of them have say any kind of loitering capability? Can they switch switch off, go to sleep, and then come back to life the next morning to finish the job?
SPEAKER_01Uh so yes and no. Uh yes, all of them you could just switch off mid-mission, uh let the vehicle float up. They're all slightly positively buoyant, so they'll they will come up to the surface and uh and and float on the surface. Uh so you could do that, and then you could restart a mission and and and use the remaining stored energy on board the system. The realities of that, of course, are that they're gonna drift off, and that's probably not a very practical solution. So uh that they're not anchoring themselves to the seabed or anything like that. So you probably wouldn't use them in that way. Uh what we have developed recently, uh we kind of co-developed the system with with Sonodyne, uh, is
Option to use an innovative seabed-mounted launching system!
SPEAKER_01a uh uh a seabed mounted launch system. So you can actually package uh EcoSub AUV in a launch tube, it attaches to a seabed uh mounted frame, uh and you can hibernate the entire system over significant time. That can be deployed down to the seabed, uh, and then you can wake the whole system up with an acoustic command. So send a message, uh system wakes up, it will initialize itself, it will wake up the node uh which has on it a compact six and also a passive USB L system uh that will localize the vehicle. Uh it can initialize its own exit from the tube, uh fly off. It will actually do a loiter for a few minutes just to make sure it's got firm position because it won't start with any GNSS. Too many S's in their GNSS. Uh and uh and and yeah, it will then fly off and complete a mission. So uh that can work very much as kind of a remote deployed system, uh resident on the seabird for a period of time until it's needed to be woken up and uh and go off and complete a mission.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and I guess we should emphasize to our listeners, it's it's not actually intended to be uh a single-use launch and forget system. Uh the ecosystem is intended to be retrieved at the end of a mission and recharged, downloaded, and reused.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean we we we have some user groups that will treat them as disposable assets, but that's not how we've designed them, it's not how we've intended them to work. Uh, all of the vehicles uh operate with Iridium uh satellite communications. So uh wherever they are globally, you can talk to them. Uh you can have two-way communication, so they'll send their position and status information every five minutes uh when they're on the surface, and uh and and likewise you can retast them and and send them missions uh uh from wherever you want to be in the world. So uh that they're very much a connected system that that's recoverable.
SPEAKER_02And what's the typical payload? Or I know that you've got a very wide range of payloads you can put on these things, but typically what do your customers ask for?
SPEAKER_01Indeed. So when we started off, uh yeah, back in 2015 was the first time we started engineering a system, there was almost no payload that you could fit on a four-kilogram AUB. Uh we we took a bit of a leap of faith that manufacturers would become interested in in smaller, lower power systems. Uh and and we got lucky. Uh in fact, we didn't get lucky, we worked really hard for it. Uh, but we had payload developers uh start to produce CTDs that we could use, barometers, uh, and and their very much early kind of application areas were were focused around science.
What sort of uses are ecoSUB customers putting the vehicles to?
SPEAKER_01Uh with some interest from uh uh oil and gas in terms of hydrocarbon detection. Uh but that was kind of their focus. We knew at that stage that they could not geolocate very well. So the navigation systems on board were minimal, they were basically dead reckoning, so getting their heading and uh uh and and and their speed through water. Uh DVLs weren't available in that kind of form factor at that stage. So uh there was science focused. Fortunately, over the last 10 years or so, a lot has changed. Um the navigation capability we can add to these systems now is
Improvements in navigation systems over last decade greatly expanding survey capability of micro-AUVs
SPEAKER_01substantial. Uh what one of the biggest shifts for us, and one we worked with Sonardynova for for kind of a five-year period, was the launch of the Sprint Nav uh U, uh, which has a fiber optic gyro on board. Uh it has INS and uh and DVL as well. And and that really is a game changer for uh for our platforms in terms of navigation capability. We're now kind of operating with full survey grade navigation uh board. Uh and as our vehicles have got bigger, we can also accommodate the uh the the pre-existing technologies that were just too big for our smaller platforms. Uh so yeah, navigation changed, uh imaging then came on board, so side scan sonar, uh we've recently been working a lot with multi-beam. Uh we have camera, uh 4K camera on board, uh strobe light as well for photogrammetry applications. Uh we've integrated a or we've actually repackaged a geometrics magnetometer, uh, which is now AUV ready. Uh so that goes on board systems. Uh what else have we done recently? I think what one of the big ones we're looking for at the moment or or pursuing at the moment is multi-aperture sonar system. So uh the wavefront solstice is kind of the uh the payload that we're we're doing some work on at the moment and trying to get that in the water. Uh so yeah, the imaging capabilities of these platforms is does come on leaps and bounds. Uh I mean it just wasn't there originally, but uh but that that's a lot of the focus now.
SPEAKER_02And I know that anything like multi-beam is a power hog. We we know it's gonna beat up your battery life very, very quickly.
SPEAKER_01So have you seen according advances in the battery tech as well that let you it's it's been more platform design uh that has enabled us to put more stored energy on board. Uh when we first started is the the the the eco sub design, it was it was built around alkaline D cell batteries, so really kind of low cost, cheap, easy to use.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, imagine evil autosub uh went to uh alkaline D cell phase 3,600 of them.
SPEAKER_01Yep, yeah. Well it was Martin Ferlong that introduced the alkaline D cells for us. So uh uh yeah, and then we we progressed into nickel metal hydrate, which obviously rechargeable cells, so a little bit of the environment. Uh and and now they're obviously running lithium ion uh uh on board, which is is kind of easy to work with uh and um provides us the stored energy that we we need on board.
Greater size on newer models expands capabilities
SPEAKER_01So uh so yeah, uh that that makes a big difference. But uh a lot of it has been in a small changes like we we shifted the uh diameter of the products. Uh our our kind of mini-platform was 146 mil, it's now gone to 152 uh mil a year, uh which uh uh enabled us to to increase the size of the battery pack on board and and increase that that that stored energy uh significantly.
SPEAKER_02And and that was one of the big shifts between uh at this point we're having a brief pause in the interview while uh Ian takes his daughter downstairs. I've had uh uh a nice colourful unicorn waving around in the screen for the last few minutes. Sorry about that, Steve. No, never apologize for family stuff that that matters. Yeah, you
Managing buoyancy & new approaches to adding extra buoyancy
SPEAKER_02mentioned earlier that all of the eco subs are slightly positively buoyant. So basically, how do you keep them down?
SPEAKER_01So when they are transiting at a fixed depth, they're always slightly nose down, they're actually in dive mode the whole time. Uh so so they fly with a slight nose-down trajectory. Uh so they're always having to overcome that slightly positively buoyant, uh slightly positive buoyance.
SPEAKER_02Um you mentioned also it's a sliding mass design rather than hydroplanes to keep that orientation, isn't it? So you basically keep the weight forward, that keeps the thing nosed down, and if it loses power or something, yeah, it it would naturally float to the surface. It comes back up to surface outside.
SPEAKER_01So that that that internal moving mass is basically on a linear actuator that's controlled by the depth controller. So uh it's constantly just moving enough to uh to keep the vehicle at the set depth.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And do you have to trim them in the sense of if somebody if an operator perhaps wants to operate in fresh water rather than salt water? I guess you have to make sure that the uh the mass is correct or for the operations.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So the vehicles are ballasted. Uh typically we do that in factory before they go off to uh to the customer. Uh but all water masses will be slightly different, so there's occasionally you need to trim that slightly. Uh we use um forward and aft uh pouches effectively inside the plastic work where you can add uh weight to them, you can add some mass to them or remove the mask. Uh we also use a lot of uh custom design buoyancy packs inside the vehicle as well. So uh particularly when we've got a very heavy nose can if you've got multi-beam uh navigation uh payload, uh CTD, etc., and acoustic modem, you know, that nose itself will be quite heavy. So what we'll do is 3D prints uh basically volume, uh that's the wrong word, uh we'll 3D print tanks that uh fit exactly the open space that you've got available. Uh and then we fill that with a uh effectively an alternative to syntactic foam. Uh it's like a a uh a proxy type compound with some glass spheres in, and that will give you kind of 40% lift inside that tank. So we we can counter the weight of the the the payloads that we're having into the nose cone uh quite intelligently.
SPEAKER_02Oh that's that's that's neat, by I don't think that's a widely available capability on the market, is it?
SPEAKER_01So that's it It's not it's not it's something our uh friends at Nock and the Glider team found out about recently and got very excited uh about this uh alternative to uh to syntactic phone that costs a fraction of uh of the amount that they were spending previously. So uh yeah,
User interface - once you've learned to fly an ecoSUB, do they all work the same way?
SPEAKER_01it's a really interesting development that we've had that that supports the vehicles.
SPEAKER_02Right. And do they all use a similar or even the same operator interface? Once somebody's been trained on one kind of eco-sub, can they can they fly all of them?
SPEAKER_01Yep, yep. It's uh we have our EcoSub GUI, uh which uh is an intuitive kind of Windows-based program. Uh it's map-based. You kind of click your mission behaviors onto the map. Uh, you can develop a mission very quickly, you can edit all the parameters on each of those behaviors. So uh you can string together a mission uh in in in a couple of minutes basically and have it up on the vehicle. Uh doesn't take much to do. If you want to send a vehicle out to a specific point and then do a lawnmower mission, it's a kind of go-to waypoint uh mission first and then a lawn mower mission, it draws the lawn mower up. You then set the parameters on what you want the line spacing to be, the length and the width of the uh the box. Uh and uh yeah, it's very very easy to use. And and and that is yeah, it it it works across all of our platforms in the in the same way.
SPEAKER_02So does it let you simulate a mission before you do the real one as well?
SPEAKER_01We don't simulate at the moment. It's something we've been talking about for a long time, but it's never hit high up enough the priority list to uh to actually get done. So uh so no, we don't uh don't don't run simulation on those ones.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, okay. I guess that came across. More when I was involved in under-ice work that the the team there used to quite like to be able to absolutely absolutely stimulate it so they could figure out hang on, what if this happens or what if that happens? But I suppose in open water operations it's less uh less.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's yeah, it's it's not something we've
Do any customers use ecoSUB in a freshwater environment?
SPEAKER_01done yet, but it's something we've talked about doing for a long time.
SPEAKER_02And are are any of your customers using eco subs in freshwater environments?
SPEAKER_01Uh yes. Uh we have got Environment Canada uh have uh a system which is being uh uh developed and finalized at the moment. Uh that's uh gonna be working out in the Great Lakes uh to uh to support their uh their their management of that that water.
SPEAKER_02So I was very surprised to discover that a lower percentage of the Great Lakes have been mapped to modern standards than off the global ocean. You'd have thought the lakes would have been done to death years ago, but it turns out that once you go off the major shipping routes, very large portions of the Great Lakes are still essentially unmapped. It's extraordinary, unless you're fish enough, they've got fit over uh records, but certainly not anything done to commercial levels. So in terms of
ecoSUB and Seabed 2030 users
SPEAKER_02seabed 2030, then uh it's obviously our our particular interest for the seabed mapping. Do you have examples of customers who are actively mapping using EcoSub at the moment? I'm pretty sure you do.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah. So we've done over the last couple of years, we worked very closely with uh company called Nord Survey, based based out of uh Gothenburg in in Sweden, uh also very active in in the UK. Uh and they have really developed uh alongside us the the V2 technology of our current system. So uh they were kind of the springboard customer, if you like, for us to to redesign a lot of the system uh and to to optimize really for this kind of commercial survey model. So uh they have their vehicle now. It's actually popped back to us for for uh an upgrade already, uh, but they've started to uh to use that with customers in in in projects now. So uh they're quite focused on on UXO uh work.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So mapping for uh unexploded ordnance for for any listeners who don't know what it stands for. Yeah, which is a big deal in um things like the North Sea offshore wind industry.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. So they were so yeah, they're they're they're gearing that vehicle very much up for that type of application, but uh uh but we've also got work with them ongoing on pipeline tracking and uh camera photogrammetry work as well. Uh they've got multi beam on their platform too, so it's uh yeah, it's a a real Swiss army knife of uh of a uh of a platform that they're they're taking out now to reuse in in real-world situations. So uh be quite exciting to see the the outputs that they they get from that.
SPEAKER_02Excellent. And uh I know the you know the parent company, Planet Ocean, and and Ecosub robotics itself. You've long uh been very good friends of things like the learned societies, the professional bodies, the UN Ocean Decade community. It's a it's a company that takes very seriously its responsibilities in that that big picture. So uh uh would it be fair to say that EcoSub has been quite actively engaged with some of the emerging nations, some of the people that are just beginning to spin up their offshore survey and science capability?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I mean we we did some work
ecoSUB as a platform for users just starting out with autonomous systems; importance of good navigation equipment
SPEAKER_01a few years ago with in Zanzibar where we're looking at uh uh imaging coral reef structures, looking for discarded fishing nets, stuff like that. So uh that that was something we took quite seriously. I mean, I mean the whole uh philosophy of EcoSub is very much around increased accessibility to autonomous systems. I mean that that's where we we started. Uh we very much stole from from Henry Ford his kind of uh uh term of of democratizing the AUV uh instead of the automobile. Uh that that was our goal from from day one to uh to to really kind of transform the marketplace. Uh and you can see massive change over that period. I mean, back when we started, it it was the AUV sector was dominated by large, very expensive uh systems that required a lot of infrastructure to operate. So that the user community was very narrow. If you look forward now, what kind of 10, 11 years or something of work we've done, that marketplace has changed massively. You know, there are other small AUV companies providing systems now. Uh the whole world is looking at uh at autonomous technology, you know, the the yeah, the the the world has shifted massively in that in that period of time. Um and in some small part, I think we're a little bit responsible for that. I mean, we we've seen various other companies, you know, tracking what we've done and and kind of uh providing uh similar services, and uh it's been interesting. We've we've been fortunate in that we've constantly moved. Uh we've never really stayed still, we've learned a lot over that period of time. Uh we've learned that yes, the small systems were great, they're very affordable, but capability still kind of always came back and bit us on the bum, uh, particularly with navigation. It's like no matter how you uh design a system, if it can't tell you exactly where it is, and and you know, users aren't necessarily going to accept that very well.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And obviously doing seabed mapping, not much good if you haven't got an accurate position fixed.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely useless, indeed. Indeed. I can't couldn't agree more. You know, we we started putting on uh side scan sonars when we just had DVL and and our own navigation solution on board, and it just wasn't working, you know, as much as we wanted it to, we still weren't seeing the levels of accuracy that we required or our users would require. So hence the pivot, hence the uh introduction of the Sprint Nav, uh which has really kind of changed the changed the game completely.
Sonardyne as a key partner for subsystems
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you you've mentioned working with Sonodyne a couple of times in in the interview. So uh are they still a key a key supplier of components for you?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, and and and part of that is because we're both, or up until recently, both uh UK sovereign companies.
SPEAKER_02Indeed, yes, yes. For those of those who don't know, uh Sonodyne's recently been acquired by Kraken. Canadian company, which also has a very good reputation in our in our world. And uh Sonodyne itself was part of Cavellia Group, which has quite a lot of other companies you you may have heard of. So we I expect Ian and I both look forward to seeing what Kraken do with Sonodyne and how the collaboration carries on ahead.
SPEAKER_01We we we both shared that that kind of UK DNA. We've got some very good relationships with with people in there, quite frankly, and it's it's worked very well. Both companies have uh have have shared philosophies and and work well together, and commercially we've been quite successful in in some of the stuff we've been doing. So uh uh and yeah, it's a supply relationship we we value, as we do with all of our supply relationships. Uh but that's one that's been very productive for both parties, I think.
SPEAKER_02So true. And I know a
Can you airfreight an ecoSUB? What about the battery packs?
SPEAKER_02question that I quite often get asked if I'm at meetings and conferences, particularly with these more compact class of autonomous underwater vehicles. Uh, how easy are they to take by air freight? Um do you have problems with you know lithium battery packs and all of these kind of things?
SPEAKER_01So up until recently, I've I've flown many easy jet flights with with our vehicles. Uh I think the most I've taken was what did I have? I think I had seven vehicles on one trip. Uh we uh we literally just rocked up to Gatwick Airport with and uh uh checked in as extra luggage. Uh easy jet, very accommodating.
SPEAKER_02What are these strange missile shaped things in your bag?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Uh with the lithium battery packs, that's now obviously a little bit more complicated. The nice thing is that our battery packs just come out of the vehicle. Um we we can take them out, we can ship them in advance, so we can handle the uh the freight issues of those a lot easier. So uh it might be if we now want to fly a vehicle out uh with us that uh that that we'll just ship the battery packs out in advance.
SPEAKER_02Uh are they sufficiently a commercial off-the-shelf product, the actual battery packs that you might have a you know a partner at the other end who can say, right, just tell me which battery pack you need and we'll have them ready for you.
SPEAKER_01Yes, we can do that. Absolutely. Yeah, so so the sales we use, uh we we don't actually have or we we deliberately don't have a pre-made battery pack up. So uh we we buy off-the-shelf cells which all are PCB protected, so uh they're individually protected rather than protected as a whole pack, uh, which means you can literally just go in and buy a load from uh from a from a local reseller uh and uh and and have them in country, uh which yeah, make makes logistics a lot easier.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, no, I can see that that that that would be quite a big advantage to be able to do that. And to what extent do you have to physically travel with the vehicles
Do ecoSUB staff travel to meet customers and train them how to use the systems?
SPEAKER_02uh when if a customer has you know bought bought one, are you there face to face with them or are they able to pretty much do everything in-house for the day?
SPEAKER_01Well for most systems we supply now, we're we're going out and providing training and uh and supporting getting people up to speed with using the vehicles, uh trying to make that a journey to becoming an AUB pilot as as simple as possible. Uh, and a lot of the time we're working with people that haven't used an AUV before. This is new technology to them. It's not that they're experienced pilots that know exactly what they're doing, they're starting completely from scratch in a lot of cases. Uh, so yeah, it's a case of bringing them out, making sure that they understand the hardware, have a good understanding of the philosophy behind it, the software, uh, and then getting them out on the water and actually running missions with them so they can see how it works and get hands-on uh and and build up that operational experience. I think it's really, really important part of the process.
SPEAKER_02And and given the, I suppose, potential dual use nature of these vehicles, do you run into any issues with um export
Do you need an export license for some countries?
SPEAKER_02licenses or restrictions, or is it pretty easy to it's quite easy to navigate.
SPEAKER_01They are dual use products. So uh yes, that they're they're listed on the UK strategic export uh file. Uh we have a general open license that we can use and apply for shipments inside the EU, and there's also some additional friendly nations that are included in that list. Uh so vehicles going to the states or Japan or anywhere in Europe, we we can pretty much uh uh ship off straight away with uh we with our certificate number. Uh other places need to have an individual export license, standard individual export license uh applied for. Process is reasonably straightforward. Customer provides us with an end use statement, uh some information on on what they're going to be doing with it, i.e., they're not gonna make a nuclear bomb from the system, uh, and then we apply for that that that license, and within about four weeks it it typically arrives. Uh that's not guaranteed, but so but that's our our typical experience with that. So reasonably easy to work with. Uh the end user does need to know if they intend to ship it out of their country, that they also need to uh arrange export license for that.
SPEAKER_02So okay. And can you buy
Can you lease or rent an ecoSUB, or purchase only? Easy to upgrade?
SPEAKER_02an eco-sub or are there options for people to hire or lease them as well?
SPEAKER_01Uh so we just operate a model where people buy systems from us. Uh, we don't operate or provide any commercial services with them, and that's quite intentional because obviously a large or potential large proportion of our end customer user base would be people operating these for survey. Uh, and we don't ever want to be up in a situation where we're actually providing competing services to our customers. So that makes sense. We intentionally don't do it. Lease model doesn't really work. Uh these vehicles are custom designed to people's requirements. Uh I don't think we've ever done the same vehicle twice unless it's been part of the same batch for a customer. Uh they're all unique. Uh yeah, you can't just have something sat on the shelf that uh that that goes out for rental. It just doesn't work. Uh everybody wants something a little bit different. And uh and yeah, you also need to have time to build up experience and operational wizardry of uh of the system. So uh the rental model isn't a particularly good fit uh from our perspective.
SPEAKER_02So and presumably provided it fits within the footprint of the particular vehicle, the in the interior space, you can quite extensively upgrade a vehicle after it's been sold as well.
SPEAKER_01It's yeah, yeah, we we have yeah, I mean NordServe is an example where we we started off with the original concept and uh uh they've had various uh new ideas of things that we'd like to do with that platform. So uh they have interchangeable nose cones that allow them to switch between multi-beam and magnetometer. Uh they're getting their camera module uh fairly soon as well. So uh yeah, that you can you can upgrade as in say, hey, can we just add this sensor to our existing configuration? Or you can then look at having kind of more multi-configurations on the platforms as well.
SPEAKER_02All right.
Is the pressure hull limited to a certain number of cycles? 3000m the maximum depth?
SPEAKER_02And the the hull itself, the pressure hull, are they limited to so many cycles of you know, up and down or compression and decompression, or are they essentially full service life components?
SPEAKER_01They're essentially full service life components, yeah. Yeah. Uh we uh probably I mean we we obviously have vehicles that we've run thousands of missions on, uh, but not necessarily to their absolute depth limits. So uh it could be a little untested if I'm honest, but uh uh I think from from from their design perspective, yeah, shouldn't be shouldn't be an issue at all.
SPEAKER_02Sure. And and what is the typical maximum depth for your your vehicles now?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we design platforms uh that go down to 3,000 meters. That's our our deepest at the moment, uh until somebody comes to us and says this they want to go deeper. Uh but uh but yeah, so we we have 3,000 meters. We also have our uh our M uh PowerPlus vehicles, which are either 500 or 1,000 meter rated as well. So uh 500, 1000 meters, 3,000 meters is is kind of where our depth ratings are sat at the moment.
SPEAKER_02That's pretty neat and it covers it covers most uses for the kind of customers that you that you have. So that probably brings us
Anything new coming up?
SPEAKER_02nicely to a sort of five final section, which would be what's coming next? You know, any exciting new developments that you're able to tell us about?
SPEAKER_01Well uh continuous development. I mean, we don't stop. It literally has been 10, 11 years of of constant change. Uh and there are there are no brakes on that. Uh, one of the really interesting projects we're working on at the moment that's just kicking off is a 3,000 meter-rated uh survey vehicle. So that will be really well loaded. So everything rated to 3,000 meters, it'll be carrying uh magnetometer, multi-beam, uh sprint nav mini navigation payload, uh it'll have dual channel side scan on board, it'll have camera, it'll have an LED strobe array on board, uh CTD, acoustic cons, USB L. It will be fully, fully packaged. So uh and what sort of size are we talking about for that one? Uh from propeller to tip of the M, uh the the uh the magnetometer, probably around just under three meters, I think that's uh that's gonna be. Right.
SPEAKER_02And still portable by a couple of birds, two-person portable.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Uh it will uh it'll be a really, really nice system. We're we're we're quite excited about. Uh and and some of the payloads on that aren't currently 3,000 meter rated, so we're gonna be doing some modifications to uh to some of the packaging on those to uh to upgrade that system, but that'll be that'll be a really nice one. Um we have various uh roadmap projects. I say roadmap, they're they're kind of further ahead than just a roadmap, but we've got some projects for vehicles with different speed capabilities, uh different endurance capabilities as well. So uh pushing that out. Uh again, stretching the envelope in terms of platform size for some of those. Uh, but yeah, some really, really interesting stuff. Uh we are involved in quite a few uh defense projects as well at the moment, and there's some gonna be some really interesting innovation coming out of some of those projects, I think. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02At the same time, you're you're still quite a lean company, aren't you? There aren't that many of you uh doing all of this.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it hurts. I mean, we we're in a process of growth at the moment. Uh so the team, the kind of the core engineering team is is around about 10 people at the moment. Uh that's grown almost twofold over the last year and a half or so. Uh and we are recruiting again at the moment to to increase the size of the team, uh, get some more engineering support and also kind of uh uh back off with support as well to uh to make things work. Uh the other things we're doing at the moment is we're we're just uh in negotiations on a new site. Uh so 12 months ago we moved or we moved part of our operations out of Southampton. Uh so we uh have our our spiritual home at the NOC at the uh National Oceanography Center. Uh that's where our our kind of lab uh has been since day one. Uh last year we moved out into a uh into a managed office site uh which was in Petersfield to uh basically give us more space to build stuff. Uh and then we are now in the process of of taking on a nearly 9,000 square foot uh industrial unit site, which uh will be a fairly substantial change in the amount of floor space that we've got available. So yeah, we just look at the space we've got and it's like we haven't got enough.
SPEAKER_02Onwards and upwards, as they say. No, it's it's it's wonderful, and it's it's so good to see what a success story this has been. Uh yeah. I I certainly remember those those first models of the original airdrops. Yeah, yeah. I guess this is back in the Gwyn Griffiths era of National Ethnography Centre and and his team, and we've gone from there and uh the Aiden and all those guys right through to what you're doing today, and it's it's been wonderful to watch that progress uh and see what's been done and know that there's still lots of exciting things to come up.
SPEAKER_01The nice thing is it's been reasonable, I mean it's been constant uh and feels furious at the time, but when you look back, it's actually been a nice steady growth trend. It's like we we've taken the time to make mistakes and learn from them uh and to build up enough experience to know what we're talking about as well. I think that that's there are a lot of companies that come in with quite a lot of money in their pockets and and they're able to grow very fast, and it's great to see that. Uh but we also look back and it's like, well, actually, you know, we've learned so much the way we've done things, you know, we've had a very patient growth process. Uh we've we've done it all very organically as well, without having to take in uh kind of venture capital or anything like that. So uh it it's it's been nice to have that kind of organic, patient growth
How to get in contact and find out more?
SPEAKER_01process and and some to learn a lot through that through that period.
SPEAKER_02So brilliant. Well, well well well done to all of you. So final thing, how do people find you? Who do they speak to? Who do they get in contact if they want to find out more?
SPEAKER_01Uh no worries. Uh anybody can drop me a line. Uh my email address is Ian I N at ecosub.uk. Uh and uh and yeah, happy to to field any inquiries. Uh our website with I can move my contact details on is uh uh ecosub.uk. Uh so you can go online, take a look, and uh uh get in touch.
SPEAKER_02Brilliant. Thank you, Ian. And I'll make sure those details are down in the podcast notes for any of our listeners to be able to find you. So a great pleasure talking to you today. Good to see what EcoSub have managed to achieve. Still lots of exciting things to come. And thank you very much for being Seabed 2030 partners as well. Thanks very much.
SPEAKER_01Thank you very much, Dave. Much appreciated.
End of interview; Closing comments
SPEAKER_02Many thanks, Ian, for telling us more about the brilliant work being done by EcoSub Robotics. We're very proud to have them as part of the Seabed 2030 family. Companies like this and these portable compact AUVs are letting small nations, are letting uh small companies, people who may never have previously been able to go out and do their own deep ocean seabed mapping, is giving them the capability to do it with their own piece of kit that they own and operate and don't need the large complicated ship to be able to deploy and recover from. So very much the way ahead for seabed survey, along with especially the large autonomous surface vehicles, uh, which obviously have the extra range that these small autonomous underwater vehicles don't quite have. We'll be back next month with our next special guest. We look forward to speaking to you then. In the meantime, keep following us at seabed2030.org and let us know if you'd like to be featured in a future episode. Many thanks. Bye.
End comments and outro
SPEAKER_00Find out more about seabed twenty thirty at www.sebed2030.org. Podcast produced by Steve Hall. Email partnerships at seabed2030.org. Music by Emily Body, copyright CBED2030. We'll be back next month via your preferred podcast provider.