The Metals Company collaborating with Kongsberg Digital to create a seafloor nodule mining system digital twin - International Mining

The Metals Company (TMC) recently entered into an agreement with Kongsberg Digital, a leading provider of high-technology systems and solutions for the oil and gas, merchant marine, defense and aerospace industries. In advance of TMC’s initial nodule collector drive test in the Atlantic Ocean planned for early next year and followed by full pilot collection system trials in the Pacific Ocean later in 2022, the parties intend to create a digital twin to enable 3D visualisation of deep-sea operations in a dynamic dashboard for review by various stakeholders. The digital twin will integrate vessel information from the surface support vessel Hidden Gem with data collected from the pilot nodule collector robot and riser system, as well as data collected by independent scientists aboard a test monitoring vessel.

Once completed and validated, the digital twin will be a core component of TMC’s future Adaptive Management System. The company plans to build out its AMS as an iterative and predictive state-of-the-art system that will use environmental and operational data to enable TMC to keep its deep-sea activities within ecological thresholds expected to be set by the International Seabed Authority. The AMS will draw on expert opinion and machine learning to improve operational efficiencies and reduce the uncertainty of the environmental impact over time.

Gerard Barron, Chairman and CEO of The Metals Company, said: “Polymetallic nodules sit on the seafloor in complete darkness at...

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