Autotracker is an EU approved research project that has been initiated by Maridan and Innovatum. The main purpose of this project is to provide the offshore oil and telecommunications industries with a complete AUV-based package for locating and tracking submarine pipeline and cable installations during surveys and maintenance tasks.

The Autotracker project is based on Innovatum’s established pipe tracker system that employs specialist magnetic field detection technology to locate submarine pipelines and cable installations. The pipe tracker system has been re-designed specifically to form a key element of the basic sensor payload of the M600, the latest in Maridan’s series of AUVs. Main challenges are to further develop the existing automation and navigation capabilities of Maridan’s AUVs in order to make them capable to perform extensive survey tasks autonomously, without any operator intervention, until the survey is completed.