Nature in Engineering for Monitoring the Oceans (NEMO)

为了满足能源需求，海上石油和天然气行业正在不遗余力地推动从世界海洋深处进行勘探和生产，在十年内，对深度超过3000米的井的需求将会增加。与此同时，一些国家正在评估深海海底矿物资源的潜力，因为陆地上容易开采的地区已经枯竭。经济上重要的金属如锰、镍、铜和钴形成结核，广泛分布，特别是在4000至6000米深度之间。与此同时，海洋科学正日益关注深海的研究挑战。下议院科学技术特别委员会主席总结了他们对“海洋调查”调查的陈述，在这次调查中，一个又一个证人告诉我们，深海对地球和地球的未来绝对至关重要（2007年7月4日）。例如，我们对深海的生态系统和物种多样性知之甚少；我们对深海洋流及其与地形的相互作用的了解还很初级——然而这些深海洋流是如此重要，例如，它们是北大西洋携带热量的表层环流的“返回”支路；在俯冲带和伸展脊的过程中，我们仍然不了解。所有这些驱动因素的共同点是需要能够在深海中进行探索、测量、取样、调查和干预。今天，这样做的技术是昂贵的，笨重的和有限的性能。工程需要承受每平方米6000吨甚至更多的压力，这导致重型车辆行驶速度缓慢，灵活性和机动性有限。这与海洋动物的结构、重量、速度和敏捷性形成对比，即使是那些生活在深海的动物。在这个项目中，我们的目标是为深潜和敏捷无人水下航行器（UUV）寻找和综合新的设计和实施概念，以满足海上工业，环境监测和科学研究的需求，基于海洋生物的灵感，实现更高的功能，更轻的重量和能源需求，以及更低的资本和运营成本。

There is a relentless drive from the offshore oil and gas industry to enable exploration and production from deeper parts of the world's oceans to help meet demand for energy - within a decade the need will be for wells in depths of over 3000m. Meanwhile, several countries are evaluating the potential of mineral resources on the deep sea floor as easily-mined areas on land become depleted. Economically important metals such as manganese, nickel, copper and cobalt form as nodules, widely dispersed, especially between 4000 and 6000m depth. In parallel, marine science is increasingly looking towards the research challenges of the deep oceans. The Chairman of the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology summarizing statements to their 'Investigating the Oceans' inquiry stated, During this inquiry, witness after witness has told us that the deep oceans are absolutely crucial to the future of the earth and the planet (4 July 2007). For example, we have so little knowledge of the ecosystems and species diversity at great depths; our knowledge of deep ocean currents and their interaction with topography is rudimentary - and yet these deep currents are so important, for example, as the 'return' leg of the heat-carrying surface circulation in the North Atlantic; and there are processes at subduction zones and spreading ridges that we still do not understand. What all of these drivers have in common is the need to be able to explore, measure, sample, survey, and intervene in the deep oceans. Today, the technology to do so is expensive, cumbersome and of limited performance. The engineering needed to resist pressures of 6000 tonnes per square metre and more leads to heavy vehicles that travel at slow speeds and have limited agility and manoeuvrability. Contrast this with the structure, weight, speed and agility of marine animals, even those that live in the deep oceans. In this project, our aims are to find and synthesize novel design and implementation concepts for deep-diving and agile unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV) to meet offshore industry, environmental monitoring and scientific research needs based on inspiration from marine organisms to achieve increased functionality, lower weight and energy requirements and lower capital and operational costs.