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COVER FEATURE
By Steffan Lindsø, Subsea Robotics Product Manager, and Casey Glenn, Electrical Engineering Lead
Advancing Oceaneering’s Freedom™ Autonomous Subsea Vehicle Through Rigorous Testing Oceaneering continues to test its autonomous Freedom vehicle offshore Norway, achieving milestones along the way. Advances in secure, reliable communication networks, software, batteries, and positioning sensors have pushed forward the development of resident and autonomous vehicles in the near-term. Because of these advances, these vehicles can accurately position themselves and receive missions to gather data and safely send it back to shore for analysis.
Oceaneering's Freedom™ Autonomous Subsea Vehicle is undergoing qualification testing in Tau, Norway.
Freedom can inspect miles of flowlines and remote wellheads as it flies around the field. The vehicle, like our Liberty™ E-ROV resident system, can be remotely piloted from an Oceaneering Onshore Remote Operations Center (OROC) while in tethered, free-swimming mode. While in autonomous mode, free of the tether, its advanced autonomous software enables high quality inspections of infrastructure.
Autonomous Software Development
In the long-term, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) used for survey scopes will have to become more Oceaneering envisions the future of offshore energy industry robotics being a autonomous and work for longer durations than combination of man-in-the-loop operations, like our traditional ROVs, as current functionality allows. Oceaneering well as autonomous capabilities, without anyone in direct control of continues to advance subsea residency and the vehicle, being used to complete parts of a work scope. The line autonomy for AUVs with our Freedom™ Oceaneering’s Freedom™ between what is remote controlled and what is autonomous will Autonomous Subsea Vehicle technology. become increasingly blurred in the near future, so much so that we Autonomous Subsea Vehicle anticipate many vehicles must have the capabilities to operate in Since 2004, Oceaneering has been at provides a new level of both scenarios. the forefront of remote piloting and efficiency by combining the control technology (RPACT), which Freedom’s software enables the vehicle to carry out low altitude allows subsea vehicles such as remotely work class functions of an pipeline inspections for pipeline surveys. The vehicle can track operated vehicles (ROVs) to be piloted pipelines 2-5 m off the seabed to provide high resolution data ROV with the speed, range, from shore. Advanced subsea vehicles survey altitudes and at 8 m for reconnaissance. and maneuverability of are benefiting from increased 4G offshore coverage along with faster, stable, and This configuration of the vehicle enables pipeline tracking with an AUV. more cost-efficient satellite communications. unprecedented proximity and tolerances, providing significantly improved Additionally, more offshore installations have data acquisition. However, tracking a pipeline this closely adds complications. direct fiber to shore connectivity resulting in lower To compensate, the software includes a heightened level of obstacle detection, latency and higher fidelity connections. autonomous obstacle avoidance, and situational awareness. These features allow the vehicle to re-plan its route and re-engage with the tracked pipeline. Freedom has been Oceaneering’s Freedom™ Autonomous Subsea Vehicle outfitted with Sonardyne’s SPRINT-Nav navigational instrument as well as Teledyne’s provides a new level of efficiency by combining the work Reson T20 technology. class functions of an ROV with the speed, range, and maneuverability of an AUV. Freedom is supported by a docking station at seabed and can operate in two modes: remotely piloted via tether to provide real-time control – or operated in an autonomous and tetherless configuration. The vehicle boasts a working range of 200 km, a working depth rating of 6000 m, speed of 6 knots, and subsea deployments of up to six months. The case for a hybrid autonomous and resident remote vehicle like Freedom, particularly in the North Sea, is evident. For example, offshore in the North Sea, there are dozens of fields and associated pipelines located within a 100 km of the coastline. With the Freedom vehicle’s long reach, it can be easily launched from shore to service these assets, dock subsea as a resident vehicle, recharge, transfer data, and move between fields to support other assets as needed.
www.ogv.energy I March 2021
Freedom™ successfully lands on third party docking station at Oceaneering's testing facility in Tau, Norway.
