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the pipe collecting a photomosaic of the entire length of the

Please provide one case study where your AUV system was tracked pipeline. During this stage it is also using a methane deployed to complete an operation more safely and/or efficiently. sniffer to help detect any leaks.

Mills, Kongsberg

One of our customers is using a HUGIN AUV for autono-

Byus, Blue? n mous pipeline survey and inspection for an oil company. They

In 2014, the world bore witness to the tragic disappearance of have recently been working in very shallow water of about 10

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 over the Indian Ocean. The m depth. The HUGIN has been operating completely autono- mously, as the water is too shallow for the support ship. The search effort immediately following the incident was critical to increase the chances of ? nding the airliner along with any shallow depth creates multipath issues for acoustic position- potential survivors. The search required a deep diving AUV, ing and communications systems making it almost impossible to supervise the survey. There is no other way of surveying and the US Navy called on Phoenix International to mobilize their Blue? n-21 to Australia. The entire Blue? n-21 Survey these particular pipes that would produce a similar data set.

System was mobilized half way across the world within a mat-

The AUV tracks the pipes autonomously, based on the pre- dicted location of the pipe. Once it has found the pipe using ter of days, and set sail to the search area on board the ADV

Ocean Shield within 10 days of being called to action. The the synthetic aperture sonar, it tracks alongside collecting sea- bed imagery to detect freespans and visible buckling. It also Blue? n-21 surveyed 870 square km of the ocean ? oor over the course of 20 operational days and safely returned the data for uses the positioning data from this survey to create an a priori analysis by the authorities on a consistent basis. Although the map on-board the AUV. This map is then utilized for the sec- search for MH370 is still ongoing, I am proud of the contribu- ond part of the survey, which is conducted without recovering tions our technology made to the search effort – allowing for the AUV. a fast, ef? cient and safe response to an emergency on a global

The second stage involves the HUGIN tracking overhead the pipe using the EM2040 multibeam echosounder. It follows scale.

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