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DeepOcean and Aker BP carried out subsea inspections employing an autonomous inspection drone (AID) on an Aker BP-operated field in the central North Sea. Aker BP and DeepOcean executed a ten-day inspection campaign at the Alvheim subsea field on Norway's continental shelf, analysing subsea trees and other subsea infrastructure.
"While testing autonomous technology is exciting in and of itself, our primary goal was to determine whether this new technology and associated methods can be used to conduct subsea inspections more cost-effectively and with higher and more precise data quality." The answer is clearly 'yes'. The development of the AID is an R&D initiative that is expected to provide considerable value to Aker BP in the next years," says Jarle Marius Solland, Operations Manager at Aker BP.
The AID project is a collaborative effort involving DeepOcean, Argus Remote Systems, and Vaarst, during which a system was developed with sector recommendations, assistance, and funding provided by Aker BP to bring the platform to market. The AID was put into operation within the DeepOcean-operated subsea IMR and ROV support vessel Edda Fauna, which replaced the current observation class ROV. Project supervision was overseen both locally by Edda Fauna and remotely from Remota's remote operations centre (ROC) in Haugesund, Norway.
"The combination of autonomous subsea inspections with remotely managed mission control is a very appealing offer for operators since it entails significant savings in operational costs, emissions, and HSE risk. "The system's stability under mission control was very impressive," remarked Terje Nordeide, DeepOcean's Project Manager.
The AID relies on Argus Remote Systems' Rover MK2 ROV, with enhanced hardware and software. Argus is in charge of the AID platform and the navigation algorithms.DeepOcean is in command of the digital twin platform, mission strategy software, and a live view of the AID in action while Vaarst is in charge of the Subslam 2x machine vision camera for autonomous navigation and data capture. According to DeepOcean, the AID is 1.25 x 0.85 x 0.77 metres and weighs 320 kilogrammes in air. It is capable of operating at water depths as low as 3,000 metres, flying in DP mode, and has station maintenance and remote control capabilities.
Read more here-https://www.deepoceangroup.com/articles/aker-bp-and-deepocean-complete-autonomous-inspection-trials
