Subsea services and technology specialist Oceaneering said Monday that its Freedom AUV has achieved Technical Readiness Level 6 on a scale of 1 to 9.
Oceaneering said Freedom, a hybrid AUV/ROV system, is the result of a long-term collaboration between Oceaneering, TotalEnergies and Chevron dating back to 2014, with Equinor joining the collaboration in 2019.
In 2014, Oceaneering began an effort to optimize the delivery of pipeline inspection services from AUVs.
“Our close relationship with our customers TotalEnergies, Chevron, and Equinor, and with Oceaneering as developer, allowed us to meet the specifications and requirements for improved pipeline inspection AUVs in the hardware design and autonomy that was developed and refined during development. It’s been achieved in both behavior: the DevOps test phase of the Freedom AUV project,” said Oceaneering.
Pipeline survey
As a result of this long-term investment and effort, Freedom has demonstrated to a group of experts that it can perform low-altitude inspections and surveys on pipelines of varying diameters. The vehicle can track pipelines from the seafloor at altitudes of 3-5m to provide high-resolution survey data, and perform reconnaissance and seafloor mapping at 8m altitude. Freedom’s control software includes specific behaviors to find and maximize data acquisition values for burial, traverse and free span events.
To ensure the safety of your vehicle and your property, Freedom includes sophisticated levels of obstacle detection, autonomous obstacle avoidance, and general situational awarenessseconds. These capabilities will allow the vehicle to re-plan its route to avoid the detected object and re-engage with the pipeline being tracked once the vehicle has safely passed the object, Oceaneering said.
According to Oceaneering, Freedom’s initial configuration for pipeline inspection will include inertial navigation systems, laser scanning systems, and multi-beam sonar technology to take advantage of Freedom’s unprecedented pipeline tracking capabilities and proximity to pipes. Equipped with high-end equipment such as “Freedom offers customers a new level of efficiency, significantly improved and more complete than what can be achieved with traditional AUV pipeline inspection techniques that are significantly faster compared to traditional ROV inspection methods.” It provides a great dataset,” said Oceaneering.
Peter Buchanan Director of Products and Services at Subsea Robotics said: We are excited to actively contribute to reducing your carbon footprint and making your energy more sustainable with every deployment. “
Subsea Robotics senior vice president Martin McDonald said: This kind of advanced technology has a great future and Freedom believes it is playing a key role in the energy transition, including renewable energy development projects. “
https://www.oedigital.com/news/499060-oceaneering-s-hybrid-auv-rov-achieves-trl-6-for-pipeline-inspection Oceaneering’s Hybrid AUV/ROV Achieves TRL 6 in Pipeline Inspection.