Inside Advanced Navigation's coral loss discovery in the world's southernmost reefs - The Robot Report

Advanced Navigation recently deployed three of its autonomous underwater Hydrus drones to survey the Hall Bank reef, one of the world’s southernmost coral reefs located off Fremantle, Western Australia. The mission, conducted in partnership with marine consultancy O2 Marine, involved capturing geo-referenced high-resolution imagery and 4K video to create a detailed 3D digital twin of the seabed. The data revealed severe coral bleaching and fragmentation, highlighting a significant environmental crisis at this atypical reef location. The survey faced challenges such as maintaining accurate positioning in complex subsea environments with weak GNSS signals and balancing high-resolution data capture with mission duration, which required careful pre-mission planning and adaptive mission logic for resilience. Key lessons from the mission emphasized the importance of thorough pre-survey planning accounting for bathymetry, tides, and light conditions, as well as the need for flexible autonomous operations to handle unexpected underwater conditions. Post-mission, Advanced Navigation focused on efficient image processing and quality assurance to enhance the accuracy