At 10:00 Beijing time on 16 October 2024, aboard the Dayang Yihao (Ocean No. 1) research vessel carrying out Dayang Cruise 87 in the western Pacific, the No. 2 vehicle of the Dongcha (Insight) series was set down steadily on deck by the swinging, rising and falling knuckle-boom crane, and applause broke out on the spot. This stirring moment marked the successful completion by the Insight series No. 2 vehicle of its sea trials and its first western Pacific application mission in the Beijing Pioneer polymetallic nodule mine area in the western Pacific.
Insight 2 is the second, improved sister vehicle of the Dongcha (Insight) series rolled out by the project team, following the original Insight vehicle’s successful completion of sea trials and application last year. Since 25 September, Insight 2 had been through two deployment and recovery cycles, and successively carried out near-bottom fixed-track navigation trials, a fine optical survey of key areas of the mine area, and a long-distance optical survey of the mine area. On this cruise the Insight series No. 2 vehicle executed a total of 6 near-bottom operational dives at working depths of 5,500 to 5,700 metres, accumulated 13 days of at-sea operations and 400 kilometres of autonomous, stable near-bottom navigation at a fixed altitude of 4 metres above the seabed, and captured an enormous volume of high-definition seabed photographs. Xie Zongbo, on-site head of the Insight AUV sea trials, said that during this cruise Insight 2’s continuous near-bottom autonomous navigation distance on a single deployment exceeded 270 kilometres, and it completed for the first time a 42-kilometre fine optical survey line within the key survey area. While running the long optical survey lines, Insight 2 for the first time operated in a mode fully independent of mother-ship escort, greatly improving the cruise’s operational efficiency.
The Dongcha (Insight) series AUVs are 6,000-metre-class special-purpose AUVs for fine near-bottom optical surveys of the deep sea, developed by Beijing Pioneer together with the Shenyang Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Harbin Engineering University, Lihai Technology Co., Ltd. and a number of other domestic technical institutions. They feature light weight, low power consumption and long range, and can complete long-distance, fine-scale near-bottom optical survey tasks. The research team adopted an integrated lightweight pressure-resistant structure combining composite materials with titanium alloy, achieving its long-endurance, lightweight design goals, and made breakthroughs in large-depth adaptive buoyancy trim technology, enabling efficient zero-angle-of-attack navigation and fine near-bottom survey capability at any working depth.
The at-sea operations team for the Insight AUV system on this cruise was composed mainly of young core staff from Beijing Pioneer Hi-Tech Development Co., Ltd., the Shenyang Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the North Sea Marine Technology Center of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Lihai Technology Co., Ltd. and other units. Cruise chief scientist Li Zhenggang said: “The at-sea operations team for the Insight AUV system is a battle-tested and technically strong unit. Faced with problems that arose during AUV operations, such as underwater communications and navigation anomalies, unexpected damage to structural components and defocusing of the optical camera, the team responded calmly, completed equipment modifications and program optimization on site, and further refined the on-site operating procedures, safeguarding the smooth progress of the equipment trials and application and achieving high-quality collection of seabed optical data from the mine area.”
Yang Quankai, Beijing Pioneer’s project representative for the company’s fifth cruise, said that Pioneer, as a leader in deep-sea resource development and ecological environment protection, has always upheld the values of discovering deep-sea value and benefiting social development. The results of Insight 2’s optical survey applications on this cruise provide an important basis for resource evaluation in the contract area and for research on seabed biodiversity. Going forward, the development and support teams will continue to invest technical resources to forge the Insight series AUVs into a sharp instrument for marine resource and environmental surveys, and to actively advance the research-oriented development of deep-sea resources.
