Offshore staff
YATELEY, UK – Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) has chosen a suite of subsea navigation, positioning, and communications technologies from Sonardyne for its first commercial SPICE (Subsea Precise Inspector with Close Eyes) AUVs.
The company designed and built the SPICE AUV, complete with a submerged docking system and robotic arm for non-destructive testing, for intelligent and low-logistic pipeline and subsea asset inspection operations in 3,000 m (9,842 ft) water depth.
Noriyuki Okaya, Development & Design section, AUV Department Kobe Shipyard, at KHI, said: “Our goal with the SPICE AUV is to enable operational efficiency of inspection operations, to reduce cost and reduce the burden and risk experienced by crews working on support vessels offshore.”
To support accurate and long-duration navigation on its missions, while minimizing complexity and payload space consumption, the vehicle is fitted with Sonardyne’s hybrid navigator SPRINT-Nav. The inertial navigation instrument combines the company’s SPRINT INS sensor, Syrinx 600 kHz DVL and a high accuracy intelligent pressure sensor. KHI selected the SPRINT-Nav 700, which is equipped with Honeywell ring laser gyros and accelerometers.
For underwater positioning and communications, the vehicle is using Sonardyne’s AvTrak 6 – a combined transponder, modem and emergency relocator beacon. KHI has also been using the company’s Mini-Ranger 2 ultra-short baseline system with a robotics pack to support tracking and communications during development and testing.
Modus Subsea Services has ordered two SPICE AUVs. One is due to be delivered this year.
07/22/2021
