Ropeless Systems Completes Fully Functional Demo System to Complete MTI Grant

A Ropeless RISER™ Transponder Actuator system, post recovery after testin in Narragansett Bay, January 2022.

In 2021 Ropeless Systems secured grant funding from the Maine Technology Institute (MTI). We spent the time since then hard at work developing our next generation of Ropeless RISER™. Today, we are excited to announce that we have finished our initial development and have produced the first working prototype of our RISER Transponder Actuator system with live gear location and chart plotter integration.

Throughout 2021 and into this year, we have been shipping products to those who wanted to test and evaluate an airbag-based ropeless fishing system. These systems, which we have been calling Ropeless RISER, have been utilizing our RISER Acoustic Timer actuator (RISER-AT). RISER-AT is time-tested and has already proven itself reliable for scientific instrument and ordinance recovery. When the need for ropeless fishing emerged, we knew that the technology behind our RISER-AT system would be a perfect fit. 

Ropeless System’s RISER-MTA™ installed in an anchor configuration for use with ropeless fishing.

From the beginning, we had a vision for how we could improve RISER-AT and make ropeless fishing a more intuitive experience. To test these improvements, we’ve produced four prototype systems that we are calling RISER Multi-code Transponder Actuator, or RISER-MTA. These systems retain the reliable acoustic detection and actuation of our previous RISER systems while offering many improvements for ropeless fishing. We’ve introduced 2-way communication with the surface vessel, so now RISER-MTA can respond with its unique identifier and indicate that it has received an actuation command. In an effort to conserve air in the air cylinders, RISER-MTA now has the ability to close off airflow when the lift bag becomes buoyant and begins ascending.

The surface side deckbox has been upgraded to a transceiver system that can now detect range and bearing of the submerged systems, calculate their location on the sea floor, and automatically upload those locations to an interactive chartplotter. This gives us visibility of the traps on the seafloor and the ability to identify which traps belong to you and which traps belong to an anonymized “other” fisher. This information is live data from the seafloor and is never uploaded to a database, keeping fishing locations as private as they would be when using a traditional buoy marking system. The chartplotter also acts as our command-and-control system. By simply clicking on the trap’s marker in the chartplotter, you can send an actuation command and receive a response that the trap is ascending.

We are very happy with the added capabilities to our ropeless fishing system and feel they make Ropeless RISER™ a very competitive product. Our first complete system test with chartplotter command-and-control took place in early April 2022. Please take a look at the video below to see our prototype system in action.

So what’s next for the development of Ropeless RISER™? We are continuing to develop both submerged and surface side systems to create a product that is viable for mass production. We are beginning a Design for Manufacturing effort so we can produce an affordable system and get them into the hands of fishers in the USA and Canada.

We will continue to work on the development of Ropeless RISER™ throughout 2022 and 2023, while also assembling and shipping prototype systems for feedback. If you’d like to discuss purchasing a prototype system, please get in touch with us at ping@ropeless.us. Your feedback is very valuable and will help make the ropeless fishing experience better for fishers around the world.