GEBCO-NF Alumni robots win ocean-mapping XPRIZE

[nitpicker]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48473701

GEBCO-NF Alumni robots win ocean-mapping XPRIZE

By Jonathan Amos
BBC Science Correspondent

31 May 2019

A robotic boat and submersible have won the XPRIZE to find the best new technologies to map the seafloor. The surface and underwater combo demonstrated their capabilities in a timed test in the Mediterranean, surveying depths down to 4km.

Put together by the international GEBCO-NF Alumni team, the autonomous duo are likely now to play a role in meeting the "Seabed 2030" challenge. This aims to have Earth's ocean floor fully mapped to a high standard.

Currently, only 20% of the world's sub-surface topography has been resolved to an acceptable level of accuracy.
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The GEBCO-NF (Nippon Foundation) Alumni team was always a strong favourite to win the $7m (£5.5m) Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE. Its members all had extensive experience in the relevant fields.

The group triumphed by packaging an existing, state-of-the-art solution with a novel twist. So, while its HUGIN autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is an established industry tool for echo-sounding the depths, its uncrewed surface vessel (USV) that deployed and recovered the sub was developed specially for the competition.
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All the teams that made it to the Mediterranean final were asked to despatch their un-piloted vehicles to a competition box some 15 nautical miles (28km) from the Greek port of Kalamata. On arrival, the chosen technologies had just 24 hours to make an extensive, high-resolution (5m or better) bathymetric (depth) map; and take multiple pictures of the seabed. The GEBCO-NF Alumni team covered 278 sq km in its allotted time, returning more than 10 images of identifiable geological features.

At a gala ceremony in Monaco on Friday, the group was presented with the Grand Prize winner trophy and $4M. The runner-up, the Kuroshio team from Japan, was awarded $1m.
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