Our groundbreaking initiative seeks to revolutionise the smaller Marine Autonomous Surface Ship (MASS) ('mini-MASS') market, addressing a crucial obstacle hindering the widespread adoption of Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USVs) in UK waters and their significant benefits: regulatory and certification challenges. These challenges are not only stifling growth and innovation in the Southwest but also impacts companies such as Unmanned Survey Solutions (USS) and members of the Future at Sea Technologies (FAST) Cluster. The recently updated Workboat Code Edition 3 (WBC3) by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) marks a significant step forward, specifically incorporating provisions for Remotely Operated Unmanned Vessels (ROUVs). However, WBC3 predominantly caters to the larger, higher-risk sector within the under-24m market, overlooking the characteristics and lower risk associated with 'mini-MASS.' Consequently, the requirements set by WBC3 pose challenges that are neither suitable nor feasible for these smaller vessels, creating a formidable barrier to innovation. This Innovative project aims to provide a comprehensive open-source report and templates. We will meticulously analyse WBC3 requirements, identifying those that are: * Valid in the context of demonstrating safety for mini-MASS. * Partially valid. * Not valid for mini-MASS safety demonstrations. For requirements falling into the second or third category, we will present generic template safety argument patterns. These patterns will justify that mini-MASS can achieve proportionate levels of safety levels, using the USS Accession Class USV as an illustrative example. Whilst this looks at certification and regulatory aspects, for the project's success there is no dependency on any approvals from the MCA for testing in an operational marine environment. The resultant report will be a valuable asset for the maritime community in the Southwest, offering designers and operators of mini-MASS practical best-practice templates. Accompanied by user-friendly guides, these templates can be customised for specific projects, alleviating the certification burden while bolstering safety standards at sea. The project's key outcomes include: * Minimising the certification burden for Southwest businesses, enabling them to concentrate on innovation in the marine and maritime cluster. * Catalysing business growth through streamlined application processes. * Enhancing safety at sea through the dissemination of well-structured, peer-reviewed, and consistent best-practice templates. * Unlocking a potential route through to establishing confidence in fully autonomous marine systems by facilitating certification of small, inherently low risk vessels; * Contributing to emissions reduction by enabling the use of smaller vessels with no or reduced emissions. * Builds foundation for the development and publishing of safety codes that are specific and proportionate for mini-MASS.

Seagrasses are the only flowering plant that are able to live and pollinate while fully submerged and thrive in sheltered shallow bays in water up to a few metres deep. As well as being a vital habitat for numerous species, seagrass meadows are responsible for 10% of the ocean's total carbon absorption as well as slowing down wave action and thus protecting coastlines. They have an important role in mitigating the impacts of climate change where they can store twice the amount of carbon compared to a terrestrial forest but seagrass meadows are under threat from anthropogenic sources such as agricultural and industrial pollution as well as coastal activities such as dredging and fishing. Mapping of seagrass meadows has been undertaken using a variety of techniques such as the use of satellite imagery, underwater video surveys , diver surveys as well as the use of single beam sonar systems. All of these techniques have their use but do suffer from drawbacks and it is the limitations of the use of single beam sonar systems that this innovation seeks to address. A single beam sonar system is capable of detecting seagrass meadows but the sonar only reveals a narrow strip of data from beneath the boat as the sonar system transmits a beam typically a few degrees wide. In order to get good spatial coverage it is necessary to survey many closely spaced parallel survey lines which is time and resource intensive. This project seeks to combine 3 cutting edge technologies into a single approach capable of mapping seagrass meadows more efficiently and with lower carbon footprints compared to current sonar based techniques. This project combines the use of advanced wide swath bathymetric sonar systems that are capable of transmitting sonar beams over 40 times wider than a typical single beam sonar system. This wider beam allows for far greater spacing between survey lines reducing significantly survey times. This project combines the wider beam sonar system with computer based Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning algorithms to determine the presence of seagrass meadows in the data. This entire platform is deployed from a carbon neutral unmanned survey vessel which as well as having significantly lower operating costs is also a safer option than utilising a manned vessel.