Ridley - A Submersible Deployment and Operations Platform for Subsea Robots

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The world needs to work subsea - for the sustainable development of energy, to advance understanding of our planet, to restore and monitor the oceans and for the responsible harvesting of their resources. Subsea robots are critical to the safe and sustained growth of many ocean economy sectors such as offshore wind, however the cost and environmental footprint of traditional deployment methods is no longer sustainable due to the reliance on large, crewed, diesel powered vessels.Ridley is a submersible deployment and operations platform for large subsea robots that delivers a less costly and more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional large vessel-based subsea robotic systems. The platform can support industry standard subsea robots and is towed to the intervention site using a small service vessel of opportunity. Once there, the platform submerges to deploy subsea robots without the need for complex lifting equipment and without the risk commonly associated with crane-based deployments through the splash-zone. The Ridley system utilises a cloud-based mission control system to allow a geographically distributed team to monitor operational data and collaborate in real time.The combination of a novel submersible deployment and operations platform with cloud-based distributed mission control allows the Ridley system to provide a competitive subsea robotic service that is less costly, less polluting and rapidly configurable to meet the needs of all sectors of the Blue Economy.