Successful sea trails for underwater autonomous vehicle for seismic surveys

Blue Ocean Seismic Services Ltd (BOSS), the marine seismic survey disruptor, is pleased to announce that it has successfully completed sea trials navigating a test prototype version of its underwater vehicle autonomously underwater using BOSS’ electronics and software system during a series of sea trials completed in Perth, Australia.


BOSS’s shareholders are Blue Ocean Monitoring, bp Ventures and Woodside Energy.

The long endurance self-repositioning autonomous underwater nodes will conduct offshore seismic surveys for oil and gas exploration and reservoir optimisation, whilst also identifying and monitoring carbon storage opportunities under the seabed.


The underwater vehicle, or testbed ocean bottom seismic robotic vehicle (tOBSrV), successfully traversed a series of waypoints, while providing status updates to a master vessel. It logged flight and engineering data which is being utilised for further systems development and optimisation.


The successful completion of the trials validates the electronics and software system which has been developed by BOSS and highlights its efficacy, underwater. The data collected will be critical in aiding and accelerating the design and development of the final product ahead of commercialisation. It marks a significant step towards achieving the BOSS vision for autonomous OBS data acquisition. The next steps are constructing and testing 10+ alpha prototypes, culminating in a seismic sea trial late Q3 2020 in the North Sea.


Blue Ocean Seismic Services:


Press release Submitted by: Jamie​ Williams

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