Page 11: of Marine Technology Magazine (September 2021)

Fugro

Fugro started working on USVs six to seven years ago, said Ivar de Josselin de Jong, director of remote inspection at Fugro, with the goal to make opera-

Fugro Blue Essence tions more effective and more ef? cient.

One of the ? rst initiatives was a 2m-long prototype with an MBES and remote- control capabilities for inland waters.

Fugro also converted a small survey boat to uncrewed for cable landing surveys and shallow water activities. Seabed mapping followed, in partnership with

ASV Global Ltd., now L3 Harris ASV, with whom Fugro developed its 9m-long diesel-powered Blue Shadow vessel, equipped with an EM 2040 MBES and “developed to provide a high-speed hy- drography solution,” said de Jong. Fugro envisions multiple Blue Shadows oper- ating as force multipliers from a parent vessel – covering more area without ad- ditional people offshore.

Part of that development meant devel- oping an adaptive line planning system, which recognizes the data and water depth and then automatically applies the right line spacing in the survey program to comply with whatever the level of quality of data is required for any spe- ci? c job.

“These units are operational and we are delivering two large survey scopes in Australia for the Australian Hydro- graphic Of? ce,” said de Jong. The ? rst was a 1,000 sq. km survey in the Gulf of

St Vincent the second was in the Torres

Strait in northern Queensland covering 1,200 sq. km. Over four months (starting

May) another survey is being done north of Broome. Both have seen a parent ves- sel and USV deployed from that vessel, using a dedicated LARS, performing survey operations, as part of Australia’s

HydroScheme Industry Partnership Pro- gram (HIPP).

Meanwhile, the ? rst of Fugro’s 12m,

SEA-KIT-built Blue Essence hybrid

USVs, which come with a Blue Volta eROV, have also gone into operation on pipeline inspection work off Australia. www.marinetechnologynews.com 11

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