Project CORAL

The aim of Project CORAL (Constructive Offshore Robotics ALliance) is to develop a deep-sea autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) for scanning and inspecting the sea down to a depth of 6,000 metres. It’s part of the French Oceanographic Fleet’s drive to replace its equipment in order to satisfy the future demands of scientists and companies.

The project is funded over five years by IFREMER, PACA Regional Council and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Total investment amounts to €5,280,000 and covers the entire cost of staff, tests and ships during the testing phase.

The project is organized into three “pillars” which express the regional character of the technological developments undertaken in collaboration with industrial and academic partners:

  1. The first pillar concerns the development of the operational underwater vehicle and includes its instrument payload, embedded software and deployment tools.
  2. The second pillar is the creation of industrial services centred on an autonomous vehicle currently operated by IFREMER which can dive to a depth of 3,000 m. IFREMER’s compensation will be a percentage on the resulting turnover. 
  3. The third pillar is setting up an “underwater robotics laboratory”, a technical environment combining the Seatech engineering school of Toulon University and IFREMER’s European Centre of Underwater Technology (CETSM).

AUV 6000 is an autonomous drone designed to accomplish intelligent missions without assistance from an operator. This underwater system will pursue innovation in functionality and performance, enabling it to undertake, in the same dive, the tasks of scanning the sea (from small to large areas) and visually inspecting localized areas near the sea floor. An array of sensors for in situ physical and chemical analysis will be implemented simultaneously to produce sets of coreferenced topographical and physico-chemical data. Collaborating scientific teams working in the fields of deep-water research (CNRS, universities, IFREMER) are responsible for defining the system’s functions.

 AUV 6000 will enable operators to produce, in a single dive, data sets relating to geology, geophysics and geology which would normally require several dives. Designed in particular for operating alongside work-class ROVs (such as Victor 6000), its purpose is to survey sites of interest and define diving targets for the ROVs.

Subsequent to an international call for tenders in 2016, the contract to develop the vehicle has been awarded to ECA Robotics, a company based in the Var. In concrete terms, this means that the company has been awarded a commercial licence which involves a commission paid to IFREMER. IFREMER will conduct technological developments on the payloads, the embedded controlling software and the deployment system.

The new vehicle is expected to enter the fleet in 2020.

Creation of industrial services centred on a 3,000-metre autonomous vehicle currently operated by IFREMER

Setting up an “underwater robotics laboratory”, a technical environment combining the Seatech engineering school of Toulon University and IFREMER’s European Centre of Underwater Technology (CETSM).