Reygar Boosts Offshore Wind Industry With V-PILOT Offering

UK based leading provider of innovative, adaptable, and cost-effective monitoring and control solutions for maritime operations challenges, Reygar Limited has launched V-PILOT, an integrated autopilot and mission planning system for unmanned survey vessels (USVs).

Reygar’s new V-PILOT offering uses an embedded vessel controller and a shore-side user interface to connect to existing GPS, thrusters, steering, and associated command systems.

The siting and construction of offshore wind farms and associated seabed infrastructure require accurate mapping of wide areas of the ocean floor. This critical activity typically becomes more challenging and costly with each kilometer away  from shore, as vessels must follow an accurate track to reliably map many square miles of seabed at greater water depths.

Speaking of their new technology, Managing Director of Reygar, Chris Huxley-Reynard said, “It is of vital importance that as offshore wind expands into greater depths and distances from shore, maritime technology remains a step ahead of any new challenges. Our pilot project with HydroSurv has shown what innovation can do to improve the cost, safety, and reliability of offshore wind surveying and we look forward to expanding our V-PILOT offering to meet the needs of this ever-evolving market.”

To ensure survey firms can deliver accurate, reliable, and cost-effective data to the offshore wind industry, Reygar has created V-PILOT which draws from more than a decade of offshore wind support vessel monitoring experience thanks to Reygar’s BareFLEET platform reporting vessel health, performance, and navigational data on close to a third of all operating crew transfer vessels, combined with its StemTIDE dynamic positioning system. The V-PILOT technology has been tried and tested on HydroSurv’s unmanned vessel pilot project funded by Innovate UK.

The V-PILOT control system can be used for small and large unmanned vessels for both inshore and coastal survey and inspection operations.

“We were pleased to work with Chris and his team to develop V-PILOT and demonstrate its use on our Uncrewed Surface Vehicles. System reliability, integrity, and economy are critical factors that must be satisfied to achieve the trust of remote and autonomous survey necessary for widespread adoption, and Reygar’s system was subjected to significant on-water validation over the 2-year project,” said David Hull, Founder & CEO, HydroSurv.