Feasibility of Ultra-Long-Endurance Hydrogen-Powered Uncrewed Surface Vessels

Acua Ocean是一家清洁海洋初创公司，它设计了一种长期耐力的液氢动力无人水面船(H-USV)。海洋和“蓝色经济”估计到2030年将提供3万亿美元的经济价值，并创造2.37亿个全职工作岗位(Koehring，2019年)，但我们缺乏可持续和经济高效地保护和管理我们的海洋和水道的技术。自主无人水面船(USV)有潜力提供可扩展的解决方案来管理和监控海洋活动。然而，由于耐力低或有效载荷能力有限，目前市场上的大多数USV的商业生存能力有限，不适合真正的海上作业。为了实现高功率有效载荷的扩展航程，USV目前依赖二氧化碳排放高的柴油发电机，需要定期人工维护，这限制了它们的最大可实现寿命。为了解决这一挑战，Acua Ocean开发了一种氢动力USV(H-USV)，用于海上基础设施、港口和海洋保护区的安全、安保和环境监测和管理。Acua Ocean的船只可在5节和20节的最大航速下续航70天，使用一套船上传感器跟踪船只并提供环境数据，使用VHF和LRAD系统进行通信，同时记录高清和热视频作为证据。我们的H-USV可以规模化制造，将资本成本降低30%，实现成本效益高的运营，在整个生命周期内比载人船只便宜50%。与现有的载人解决方案相比，H-USV的使用将减少高达99.3%的运营二氧化碳排放，并提供更少的维护和加油需求，而不会牺牲电力。这将增加航程、速度和耐力，增加现场运营。我们将与劳埃德注册公司和南安普顿大学海洋与海事研究所合作，测试监管、技术、运营和商业环境的可行性，以设计和运营AO正在申请专利的H-USV。H-USV的监管环境和技术设计的发展将支持到2050年过渡到净零的技术开发。这项可行性研究的基本法规、操作和技术成果以及技术诀窍将使多种类型的液氢动力船舶在整个航运业得到加速采用。从长远来看，该项目有可能通过让来自偏远和农村社区的渔业和国防行业的水手重新掌握技能，成为USV操作员，从而为海运业提供大量高技能、清洁技术的工作岗位。

ACUA Ocean is a clean-maritime start-up that has designed a long-endurance liquid hydrogen-powered uncrewed surface vessel (H-USV).The oceans and "blue economy" is estimated to deliver US$3tr economic value by 2030 and create 237m full-time jobs (Koehring,2019), yet we lack the technology to sustainably and cost-effectively protect and manage our oceans and waterways.Autonomous uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) have the potential to offer a scalable solution to manage and monitor maritime activities. However, most USVs available on the market today have limited commercial viability due to low endurance or restricted payload capacities, making them unsuitable for true offshore operations.To achieve extended ranges with high-power payloads, USVs currently rely on diesel generators with high CO2 emissions and require regular manned maintenance that limits their maximum achievable endurance.To solve this challenge, ACUA Ocean has developed a hydrogen-powered USV (H-USV) for safety, security and environmental monitoring and management of offshore infrastructure, ports, and marine protected areas. With an endurance of 70days at 5knots and a peak speed of 20knots ACUA Ocean's vessels can track vessels and provide environmental data using a suite of onboard sensors, communicate using VHF and LRAD systems whilst recording HD and thermal video for use as evidence.Our H-USV can be manufactured at scale, reducing capital costs by 30%, allowing for cost-effective operations that are 50% cheaper than manned vessels throughout their lifespan.The use of H-USVs will reduce operational CO2 emissions by up to 99.3% and offer reduced maintenance and refuelling requirements compared to existing manned solutions, without sacrificing on power. This allows for increased range, speed and endurance, increasing onsite operations.Working with Lloyds Register and the University of Southampton's Marine & Maritime Institute we will test the feasibility of the regulatory, technical, operational and commercial environments for the design and operation of AO's patent pending H-USVs.Development of the regulatory environment and technical design of H-USVs will support the development of technologies supporting the transition to Net Zero by 2050\. The foundational regulatory, operational and technical deliverables and know-how from this feasibility study will enable the accelerated adoption of multiple types of liquid hydrogen powered vessels across the maritime industry.Longer-term, this project has the potential to deliver significant numbers of highly skilled, cleantech jobs to the maritime industry through the re-skilling of mariners from the fishing and defence industry from geographically remote and rural communities to become USV operators.