Of Egil M Solberg | 06.05.2024 21:18:49
Business: The award is given to exhibitors at the world’s largest oil fair, OTC in Houston, who are restructuring the offshore energy industry through innovation and the development of new technology.
This year’s award recipients were selected based on the following criteria: The product’s unique qualities, degree of ingenuity, demonstrated success, commercial viability, and the ability to significantly influence the offshore industry.
– The aim of our autonomous underwater drone is to carry out inspection work on the seabed more cost-effectively, while at the same time extracting better and more precise data quality, which adds value to the operating companies. We are very pleased that OTC recognizes AID’s positive impact opportunities with this award, says Øyvind Mikaelsen, CEO of DeepOcean.
Autonomous Inspection Drone (AID)
The AID project is a strategic partnership between DeepOcean, Argus Remote Systems and Vaars, where the system has been developed with guidance, support and funding from Aker BP to bring the technology to market.
The drone is based on a Rover MK2 ROV from Argus Remote Systems, with upgraded equipment and software packages. Argus is responsible for the AID platform and navigation algorithm, while DeepOcean is responsible for the digital twin, mission planning software and live transmission of the drone in operation. Vaarst is responsible for the machine vision camera “Subslam 2x” for autonomous navigation and data capture.
The autonomous inspection drone measures 1.25 x 0.85 x 0.77 metres, weighs 320 kilograms on land, and can operate at sea depths down to 3,000 metres. It can fly in DP mode (dynamic positioning) and has functions both for keeping the drone in the exact same place (station keeping) and for remote control.
Inspection data from the underwater drone is transmitted to land, and the vessel’s position is continuously streamed back to the digital twin to ensure high data quality and increase situational awareness.