A rare selfie in the sun!
A two-part journey of the Limpet and its first underwater trials in Fort William
Part (1) On the 27th of June we left Edinburgh by car (after a short delay collecting it) in a beautiful sunny morning to travel to Fort William where the scenery was much admired by all. Plans were laid out for the work to be conducted that day and discussions over the rarity of the good weather we were enjoying. Once we arrived just after midday, we got straight into conducting the essential work of testing the Limpets ability to use its sensors while submerged and how through the use of the USMART system we would use acoustic communication to communicate with the other underwater nodes. Mixed results were achieved, a few problems were noted with the case, but the communications and limpets worked as planned. We then returned to Edinburgh that evening still enjoying the unusually good weather.
Part (2) I departed for Fort William via car on the night of July 1st while Sayed joined by train the next day (laden down with equipment). We had a change of plan with the Limpets underwater encapsulation method to ensure water tightness.
Once we gathered our thoughts and checked the equipment, it was off to the pier to test the limpets in the water and prepare for the Industry demonstration the next day. To venture onto the pier required the donning of some rather fetching orange boiler suits, lifejackets and steel toe capped boots to be close to the water. Initial tests proved again positive and with the full suite of sensors enabled, we were ready for the industry demonstrations
The day of the industry demo arrived, and right off the bat, we were straight into the presentation where the ORCA project and the specifics of the day were explained. We went out to the pier to set up our demo. Early in the afternoon the Limpet was deployed within a network of other USMART systems and successfully communicated and with our core system displaying the required environmental data and allowing us to demonstrate the potential of the Limpets. The industry visitors appeared impressed engaging with us afterwards on the uses of the Limpet and other aspects they would like to see included.
Once the demonstrations were completed the equipment was packed up, and the journey home began, again we enjoyed the fantastic scenery and weather all the way back to Edinburgh.
Topside testing of the Limpet
Limpet pre-encapsulation
Limpet encapsulated ready to dive
Lowering the Limpet in…
Limpet submerged
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