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KAUST Announces Partnership with Ocean Aero for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Diver during a research trip in the Red Sea offshore of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. (Reuters)
Diver during a research trip in the Red Sea offshore of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. (Reuters)
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KAUST Announces Partnership with Ocean Aero for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Diver during a research trip in the Red Sea offshore of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. (Reuters)
Diver during a research trip in the Red Sea offshore of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. (Reuters)

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) announced a new collaboration agreement with Ocean Aero, a manufacturer and service provider of ocean-going Autonomous Underwater and Surface Vehicles (AUSVs).

Ocean Aero and Shelf Subsea, a service company for the marine industry, will bring the AUSVs into Saudi Arabia, which will enhance KAUST research of the Red Sea.

Ocean Aero’s TRITON Generation III AUSV is the world's first and only autonomous, environmentally-powered ocean vehicle that both sails and submerges for persistent, long-range ocean observation and data collection missions.

The solar panels and batteries on this AUSV allow the vehicle to spend months at sea unattended, whereas comparable AUSVs cannot explore for more than a day without direct handling.

The collaboration will benefit knowledge of the Red Sea and KAUST research in many ways. By customizing the AUSVs with sensors, the KAUST Red Sea Research Center will acquire new data that will be instrumental in understanding special features of the Red Sea, such as its unusual currents and biodiverse habitats and species.

In addition, the collaboration will advance KAUST’s Coastal and Marine Resources Core Lab capabilities and knowledge in marine robotics design and operation, which will enable the future development of KAUST’s own Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.

Further, the KAUST Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering Division (CEMSE) is developing new features that integrate artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of things (IoT) to the vehicles and sensors.

“In response to the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) and Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, KAUST is further dedicating itself to Red Sea research.

The KAUST-Ocean Aero collaboration is one of many efforts that reflect this goal,” said Daniel Acevedo-Feliz, director of KAUST Core Labs and Research Infrastructure.

“We are excited to have Ocean Aero as partners, as not only their vehicles but also their shared expertise will significantly advance this project,” he added.

Ocean Aero CEO Kevin Decker said, “We couldn’t be happier to work alongside the oceanographers, researchers and marine scientists at KAUST. By providing a platform to delve deeper into data collection in the Red Sea than ever before, we’re able to do more science with less resources in a safe, consistent and reliable way.

“With Shelf Subsea’s expertise in maritime operations, we have the perfect partner to execute the launch, recovery, data processing and maintenance of the TRITON fleet.”

The collaboration kicked off immediately, with a number of TRITONs already stationed at KAUST, and more on the way.

The AUSVs, combined with training by Shelf Subsea on their operation, position KAUST and Ocean Aero to generate quick, meaningful results on the oceanography and marine biology of the Red Sea.

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Researchers Document Huge Drop in African Elephants in a Half Century

Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
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Researchers Document Huge Drop in African Elephants in a Half Century

Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo

African elephants are Earth's largest land animals, remarkable mammals that are very intelligent and highly social. They also are in peril. Fresh evidence of this comes in a study that documents alarming population declines at numerous sites across the continent over about a half century.

Researchers unveiled on Monday what they called the most comprehensive assessment of the status of the two African elephant species - the savanna elephant and forest elephant - using data on population surveys conducted at 475 sites in 37 countries from 1964 through 2016.

The savanna elephant populations fell by about 70% on average at the surveyed sites and the forest elephant populations dropped by about 90% on average at the surveyed sites, with poaching and habitat loss the main drivers. All told, there was a 77% population decrease on average at the various surveyed sites, spanning both species, Reuters reported.

Elephants vanished at some sites while their populations increased in other places thanks to conservation efforts.

"A lot of the lost populations won't come back, and many low-density populations face continued pressures. We likely will lose more populations going forward," said George Wittemyer, a Colorado State University professor of wildlife conservation and chair of the scientific board of the conservation group Save the Elephants, who helped lead the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Poaching typically involves people killing elephants for their tusks, which are sold illegally on an international black market driven mostly by ivory demand in China and other parts of Asia. Agricultural expansion is the top factor in habitat loss.

The forest elephant population is estimated to be about a third that of savanna elephants. Poaching has affected forest elephants disproportionately and has ravaged populations of both species in northern and eastern Africa.

"We have lost a number of elephant populations across many countries, but the northern Sahel region of Africa - for example in Mali, Chad and Nigeria - has been particularly hard hit. High pressure and limited protection have culminated in populations being extirpated," Wittemyer said.

But in southern Africa, elephant populations rose at 42% of the surveyed sites.

"We have seen real success in a number of places across Africa, but particularly in southern Africa, with strong growth in populations in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia. For populations showing positive trends, we have had active stewardship and management by the governments or outside groups that have taken on a management role," Wittemyer said.

The study did not track a continent-wide population tally because the various surveys employed different methodologies over different time frames to estimate local elephant population density, making a unified head count impossible. Instead, it assessed population trends at each of the surveyed sites.

A population estimate by conservationists conducted separately from this study put the two species combined at between 415,000 and 540,000 elephants as of 2016, the last year of the study period. It remains the most recent comprehensive continent-wide estimate.

"The loss of large mammals is a significant ecological issue for Africa and the planet," said conservation ecologist and study co-author Dave Balfour, a research associate in the Centre for African Conservation Ecology at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa.

The world's third extant elephant species, the slightly smaller Asian elephant, faces its own population crisis, with similar factors at play as in Africa.

Of African elephants, Wittemyer said, "While the trends are not good, it is important to recognize the successes we have had and continue to have. Learning how and where we can be successful in conserving elephants is as important as recognizing the severity of the decline they have experienced."

Wittemyer added of these elephants: "Not only one of the most sentient and intelligent species we share the planet with, but also an incredibly important part of ecosystems in Africa that structures the balance between forest and grasslands, serves as a critical disperser of seeds, and is a species on which a multitude of other species depend on for survival."