A five-member team from the Regional Agency for the Development of Research, Technology, and Innovation (ARDITI) is participating in REPMUS 23, a NATO event hosted by the Portuguese Navy in Troy.
“Pedro Neves, Carlos Lucas, Pedro Gois, Gonçalo Barros, and Rui Caldeira will stay a few more days in the south of Lisbon, where they have already received encouraging data from a system designed and built by the French company iXblue (eXail) equipped with a multibeam probe that has already successfully contributed to the exercises hydrographic and oceanographic data.”
Their participation in the exercise stems from a partnership that ARDITI has with the Portuguese Navy, and includes, the Hydrographic Institute and the National Maritime Authority, thus allowing the Madeiran contingent to test the device, which is still under construction with the support of the Regional Government of Madeira.
“Before coming to the Region, DriX, equipped with a state-of-the-art multibeam probe, an acoustic current metre, a multiparametric probe, and a weather station, will return to France where it will undergo several system fixes to solve errors identified during the trial, as well as certify the scientific equipment, before completing the sea tests.
Rui Caldeira, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ARDITI, considers that this device “is a great step in the training of the Region to carry out measures in the open and deep sea at controlled costs,” making a comparison between the data collection carried out by DriX this year and a survey made during REPMUS in 2022. “Last week, the new vehicle was able to map in 30 hours an area equivalent to that which had been mapped by a Romanian hydrographic vessel, with 25 men on board, and which took three days to complete. This time, four men were able to carry out the task from an operations room in Troy.”
DriX should arrive in Madeira in 2024 once all testing is completed.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
