FIRST AUTONOMOUS HULL CLEANER UNVEILED

Greek shipping firm Oriani Hellas has announced the launch of what it says is the first autonomous robotic hull groomer in the world

Working in partnership with the EEA Grants-funded Scrufy Partnership, a robotics and software project working on the development of robotic crawlers for this purpose, Oriani has launched BlueBOT, which magnetically attaches to the hull of a vessel and grooms the surface of biofoul.

It also collects data, generates reports on the state of the hull and how effective the grooming has been.

BlueBOT is also certified for underwater operation near explosive environments, the company says, and can navigate autonomously on the vessel surface undertaking its various tasks, including corrosion mapping, coating thickness measurement, in-service hull cleaning, and so on.

“The robotic platform will be able to withstand hydrodynamic forces and move freely around the hull while the ship is moving,” says Oriani. ”A novel software and algorithm for analysis and visualization of non-destructive testing-results, as well as a more sophisticated extension of the software that will enable the robot to navigate autonomously on the ship hull, will also be developed.”

“Oriani prides itself on identifying the most innovative digital solutions to represent within the maritime industry, ones that truly deliver value to shipping companies on their voyage of digital transformation,” said John Vandoros, business development director of Oriani Hellas. ”BlueBOT and the state-of-the-art technology that it contains represents not only the huge potential within robotics, but how that potential can be harnessed and delivered in the real-world to achieve actual change.”

Data collected from world’s most remote seas

Saildrone offers environmentally friendly and cost-effective solutions for capturing air-sea carbon flux data via its fleet of uncrewed vehicles.

Observations of air-sea carbon flux are essential to understanding carbon cycling and predicting future changes to Earth’s climate. Saildrone pushes technical and endurance boundaries to deliver critical data from areas of the ocean where it has traditionally been out of reach or prohibitively expensive to collect—with a fleet of uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs).

As part of the EuroSea project, a multinational effort to enhance the European ocean observing and forecasting system coordinated by GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, a Saildrone vehicle was deployed on a first-of-its-kind mission to improve both the number and quality of carbon observations in the Tropical Atlantic.

“Our main objective is to better quantify the air-sea gas exchange in the tropical Atlantic; this region is much more underinvestigated with regard to carbon than some other areas of the ocean,” said Bjorn Fiedler, a marine chemist at GEOMAR and principal investigator.

The vehicle, SD 1079, was deployed from Newport, RI, in July 2021 and sailed 3,100 nm across the North Atlantic to begin the survey. Research began when it arrived in the vicinity of Cabo Verde. It performed coordinated sampling with an Argo float and the EuroSea team, and then sailed to João Valente Bank for a hydroacoustic sub-survey period in shallower waters to determine the distribution of fish and zooplankton around the remote reef before heading south to sample along the equator.

Data collection was completed in February 2022, and the vehicle began the more than 4,500 nm transit back to the US. SD 1079 was in excellent condition when it was recovered safely in Jacksonville, FL, after a 370-day, 11,910-nautical mile journey.