UK team scoops Moonshot Award at Ocean XPrize

The Ocean XPrize challenged teams to devise novel technologies for mapping the ocean floor autonomously in high resolution. Competing in the final against seven other teams from around the world, the UK team had 24 hours to map at least 250 km2 of the ocean floor off the coast of the Greek city of Kalamata, achieving a 5m horizontal resolution or higher.

Team Tao, which featured subsea engineers from Soil Machine Dynamics (SMD) and Newcastle University, used its swarm system of subsea drones deployed from an autonomous surface vessel to take on the task. During the final, the team had to chart the seafloor to identify 10 archaeological, biological and geological features of interest. Despite Team Tao falling short of the competition's criteria, the judges unanimously decided to bestow the surprise Moonshot Award in recognition of the team’s unique approach to the challenge.

“I am delighted that Team Tao have received this Moonshot Award,” said Mike Jones, SMD CEO. “We began this journey with an ambitious dream on a minimal budget and secured a fantastic partner in Newcastle University to create TeamTao. Solving engineering problems by looking at them from a different angle is the essence of what we do at SMD, and together with Newcastle University, we have engineered a truly pioneering and cost-effective method of rapidly mapping the ocean floor and water column.