Madeira invests €6 million in two deep-sea research vehicles

The Madeira Oceanic Observatory (OOM), run by ARDITI, will present two new autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) tomorrow at its operational centre in Funchal. The equipment, built by the UK's National Oceanography Centre, cost around €6 million funded through Portugal's Recovery and Resilience Plan and arrived in Madeira on 16 June. One vehicle can operate to 1,500 metres with over 20 days of autonomy for environmental monitoring; the other reaches 6,000 metres for high-resolution seabed mapping and infrastructure inspection. Staff are undergoing training before the systems become fully operational.