AUVs and Smart ROVs

2 July 2009 London Evening Meeting

Chairman Ian Gallett, Chief Executive, SUT
Sponsored by Fugro and SeeByte

Flyer

Overview

The advent of the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) has delivered technologies that provide true autonomous control and awareness. With these technologies on hand, the AUV has become the tool of choice for choice for a range of applications: these include deepwater surveys and very shallow water mine hunting. The advanced technology that allows the AUV to operate autonomously has also now been fitted back into ROVs, providing great advantages in handling and productivity.

Presentations

Putting theory into practice – operational experience with a survey AUV

Andy Morse, Fugro

Following three years of successful operation with the Echo Surveyor 1 AUV, the vehicle was returned to the manufacturer for its 30 000km service. It is now well into the next 30 000km of acquisition, and in the intervening years, Echo Surveyors 2 and 3 have joined the Fugro fleet. This presentation covered some of the issues of operating AUVs on geophysical surveys for the oil and gas business.

Autonomous Inspection Vehicles

Dr Jonathan Evans, SeeByte

Recent development programmes have been pushing the boundaries and capabilities of the AUV, and they have demonstrated that AUVs can be used to carry out autonomous inspection of pipelines, risers and ship hulls. These technologies and novel mechanical design concepts are paving the way for a new subsea inspection and intervention capability: the autonomous underwater vehicle. This presentation presented the current state-of-the-art, together with recent results.

Smart ROVs

Dr Ioseba Tena, SeeByte

The ROV is still the offshore workhorse responsible for offshore field development and subsequent inspection and maintenance operations. Continuous improvements have shown that the ROV can be relied on for evermore complex intervention work. Importantly, technologies originally developed for the AUV have been finding their way to the ROV. From simple station-keeping to true dynamic positioning, the ROV today is capable of reproducing many of the tasks originally intended for the AUV. This presentation showed how smart ROV technology has been demonstrated to improve underwater operations and provided a glimpse as where the technology is headed next.