{"id":15273,"date":"2024-07-05T09:52:08","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T09:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1408213"},"modified":"2024-07-05T09:52:08","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T09:52:08","slug":"this-tiny-autonomous-sailboat-is-charting-a-new-course-for-marine-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=15273","title":{"rendered":"This tiny autonomous sailboat is charting a new course for marine science"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span>Amar Shar, the co-founder of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/startup-wayve-1-billion-europes-largest-ai-funding-round-autonomous-vehicles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span>British AI unicorn Wayve<\/span><\/a><span>, has backed Oshen, a budding startup building miniature <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/topic\/autonomous\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">autonomous<\/a> sailboats. The little robots could transform the way scientists monitor everything from ocean temperatures and waves to biodiversity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The Plymouth, UK-based <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/topic\/startups\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">startup<\/a> was founded last year by Anahita Laverack and Ciaran Dowds, two young engineering graduates at Imperial College London.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The startup is building small solar-powered \u201cseaborn satellites\u201d that sail around the ocean gathering data. The little <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/topic\/robot\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">robots<\/a> could make marine data acquisition more accessible than ever before.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWe want to do for the sea what smallsats did for space: revolutionise access by providing a reliable, low-cost platform anyone can use \u2013 from scientific researchers to clean energy providers to weather forecasters,\u201d said Laverack.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-image post-mediaBleed aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1408216 size-full js-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2024\/07\/oshen-startup-funding-autonompus-sailboat.jpeg\" alt=\"oshen-startup-funding-autonompus-sailboat\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\"><figcaption>Oshen founders Anahita Laverack (left) and Ciaran Dowds. Earlier this year, the startup won the National Award for Innovation from Innovate UK, the country\u2019s foremost innovation agency. Credit: Oshen\/UKRI<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/figcaption><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1408216 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2024\/07\/oshen-startup-funding-autonompus-sailboat.jpeg\" alt=\"oshen-startup-funding-autonompus-sailboat\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\"><\/noscript><\/figure>\n<div class=\"inarticle-wrapper latest channel-cta hs-embed-tnw\">\n<div id=\"hs-embed-tnw\" class=\"channel-cta-wrapper\" readability=\"8.5\">\n<div class=\"channel-cta-img\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/events.tnw\/hardfork-2018\/uploads\/visuals\/tnw-newsletter.png\"><\/div>\n<p><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/events.tnw\/hardfork-2018\/uploads\/visuals\/tnw-newsletter.png\"><\/noscript><\/p>\n<div class=\"channel-cta-input\" readability=\"12\">\n<p class=\"channel-cta-title\">The &lt;3 of EU tech<\/p>\n<p class=\"channel-cta-tagline\">The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol&#8217; founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It&#8217;s free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>Currently, scientists typically collect information about the world\u2019s oceans by attaching sensors to floating buoys. But these devices have to be manually deployed and tend to drift around, making precise measurements difficult.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cDoing research at sea is prohibitively expensive,\u201d says Laverack. \u201cWhich is why biodiversity surveys are brief and infrequent, and offshore weather data patchy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Autonomous sailing vessels offer a workaround. However, according to Oshen, the ones already on the market are \u201ctypically bespoke constructions that are far larger than our technology, with far higher energy consumption.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Democratising ocean research<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span>Oshen constructs its little boats using off-the-shelf components in a bid to keep costs low and reliability high. The fully autonomous 1-metre long, 25kg vessels can be deployed from anywhere, including a beach or a jetty, so there\u2019s no need for costly trips out to sea. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The little probes harness wind and solar power to navigate, with onboard batteries providing backup power. In a recent test, one of the seaborn satellites managed to sail 100km in seas off the coast of Britain. But its creators eventually aim to operate the bots for months or even years at a time.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Oshen has developed its own autonomous software to help the drones navigate. This aspect of the technology caught the eye of Amar Shah, an expert in machine learning and autonomous systems.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cAs we move into an AI-dominant world, machine learning models and hardware are becoming commodities,\u201d said Shah. \u201cConversely, novel and accurate data acquisition will be an attractive place for startups to build competitive business moats, especially if in arenas where \u2018big tech\u2019 do not venture.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cOshen\u2019s vision is essentially this for ocean and weather data.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Shah\u2019s angel investment, the size of which was not disclosed, will help Oshen come to market, said the startup. The company is now refining its design at its new headquarters in Plymouth. It says it is in talks with energy and weather data providers in the UK and US.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Oshen is not alone in tapping tech to protect our seas. <\/span><span>As the world\u2019s oceans face mounting threats from climate change, overfishing, and pollution, startups are coming up with clever ways to protect them \u2014 from<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/world-ocean-day-tech-startups-protecting-our-seas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> <span>underwater satellites to 3D-printed reefs<\/span><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/little-autonomous-sailboat-robot-oshen-marine-science\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amar Shar, the co-founder of British AI unicorn Wayve, has backed Oshen, a budding startup building miniature autonomous sailboats. The little robots could transform the way scientists monitor everything from ocean temperatures&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}