May 12, 2023: 

Harvest Technology Group (Harvest), together with its partner, Shamal Technologies (Shamal), presented on emerging technology in autonomous marine mapping at RobotoKAUST 2023, held at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia on May 8, 2023.

While still in its infancy in the marine industry, autonomous marine mapping has grown significantly in the Red Sea region over the past decade, thanks to KAUST’s research efforts. Taking advantage of numerous marine technologies such as remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs), autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs), and amphibious drones, Shamal uses a multi-vehicle approach to efficiently survey and collect data from sea, land and air. Deploying multiple survey assets allows for a broader scope of data to be collected faster and with less humanpower on the ground.

To fully digitalise their marine mapping and surveying operations Shamal has partnered with Harvest using their Nodestream™ low latency and ultra-low bandwidth technology to feed the data back in real-time. This allows Shamal, their clients and stakeholders to have 24/7 situational awareness of their assets via high-definition video, audio and data. Industry-proven, asset agnostic and reliable across any network, Nodestream™ will further reduce the need for personnel to work in hazardous remote environments.

“Using multiple autonomous systems on the sea surface, underwater and airborne in a single survey campaign is proving to be extremely efficient with significantly more data being produced,” said Francis Mallon, Head of Archaeology and Marine at Shamal Technologies. “This multi-vehicle approach is helping fix the age-old issue with marine survey, particularly to “map the gaps”; the zero-to-10-metre super shallow areas, which has long been elusive to marine scientists. That’s why we want to work with Harvest; to have all the data integrated and streaming back in real-time through Nodestream™.”

Advances in autonomous marine mapping will be crucial over the next few years, as demand for survey and environmental monitoring increases for Saudi Arabia’s Giga projects – several large-scale economic development initiatives that are expected to transform the Kingdom into an innovative global hub for trade, eco-tourism, entertainment, and sustainability – all part of Vision 2030. With applications for environmental monitoring, terrestrial and marine surveying, Harvest is excited to take its technology to Saudi Arabia. 

“Collaborating with Shamal Technologies on these projects is both exciting and gratifying as it allows us to enable businesses to create safer, efficient and cost-effective workflows, provide real-time visibility for their stakeholders, and protect marine habitats,” said Jimmy Dean, Head of Solution Architecture at Harvest.

Harvest is delighted to be officially recognised as Shamal’s technology partner in a signing ceremony held at KAUST on May 11, 2023. Harvest and Shamal are excited to bring innovation to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and drive the change towards autonomous survey and mapping within the region.

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