Offshore staff
PARIS – Forssea Robotics and DeepOcean have tested an autonomous inspection drone (AID) for Aker BP on subsea templates at the Skarv field in the Norwegian Sea.
The location is 210 km (130 mi) offshore in a water depth of around 400 m (1,312 ft).
The AID combines subsea positioning and navigation systems, with software developed by Forssea Robotics to enable dynamic positioning, auto-docking, path-following, and object-tracking modes.
DeepOcean’s 3D mission planner pre-programmed the inspection track.
According to Forssea, accurately repetition of an inspection path over a subsea structure allows improved analysis of conditions for integrity management.
In addition, tasks can be performed more efficiently through simultaneous work during subsea operations, reducing the number of days required for the offshore program and intervention costs, with remote control from onshore centers lessening risks to offshore personnel.
The company is also participating in a GIS platform installation off Peninsular Malaysia, supporting survey/ROV operations through use of RPOS software (which can be controlled from an onshore command center), and a VLOC system to provide augmented reality for subsea positioning, reducing manpower requirements.
Finally, Forssea has secured an innovation grant for its subsea autonomous inspection developments, with a focus on offshore wind farm operations and maintenance.
The company will use the money to enhance its ROV remote supervision capacity and deployment from a crew transfer vessel or unmanned surface vessel, upgrading its existing systems with further hardware and software reliability.
CEO Gautier Dreyfus said: “We believe that the home for resident ROVs is not the seabed but USV. The requirements are similar: long immersions cycles and all-electric design to reduce maintenance, supervised piloting mode with low latency, and autonomous features to deal with communication loss and pre-programmed operations such as pipe survey or asset inspection.”
12/22/2021
