Page 72: of Marine Technology Magazine (September 2021)

MTTTTTTTTTTTTTRM M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M MTRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMTTTTTTTTTTTTTRMTR 100000000000000001111111111111111111111111111100000000000000000000000000000010000000000000000100 ? oor and that probably gets a bit expensive if you’re just want-

Oceaneering ing something resident for a week or two. Then, semi-resident Oceaneering has also been working on mid-water/suspended probably makes more sense, with the USV hovering out there docking cage for its Freedom vehicle and it’s also looking at supporting a mid-water garage.” Operating ROVs from USVs USVs as the surface asset to support that docking. “Launch is also something that’s already out there, being done, he says, and recovery subsea is an enabler,” says Lindsø. “It means via military customers, and is soon to be commercialized by we can up that weather window signi? cantly.” Instead of hav-

Ocean In? nity using Saab Seaeye’s Leopard. Siesjö says an- ing to launch and recover the vehicle to the deck for charging other way to do it is at the surface, again using a USV but with and communications, it can dock 50-60m below the surface, a LARS on the boat – as is already done with AUVs – and doubling the signi? cant sea state this work can be done in. a tether protection system to prevent propeller entanglement. If deployed via a USV, a subsea vehicle could be brought up to under the hull for transit to another site, while charging,

Saipem without needing to bring it on deck, with the USV providing a

As part of its all-electric Hydrone R resident ROV devel- communications gateway to shore. opment, Saipem also has a “? ying garage” concept (in addi- Oceaneering’s submerged dock concept is also a cassette tion to a seabed garage) and sees USVs as part of the picture. type arrangement with a slight funnelled entrance and a me-

The ? ying garage is a cassette type structure with ArUco type chanical locking mechanism. An acoustic beacon and passive markers and a funnel entrance for guiding the vehicle in. Mat- markers (e.g. ArUco) would enable the vehicle to locate the teo Mattioli, life-of-? eld technical advisor, Hydrone program entrance, with USBL guidance from the surface vessel. manager, Saipem, told the Underwater Technology Confer- It’s designed to be simple, so it can be made anywhere, so it’s ence (UTC) in June that a ? ying garage could allow Hydrone just the vehicle needs to be shipped, he says. It’s also designed

R – and also the ? rm’s FlatFish AUV, which uses the same that it can be single point lifted out of the water to the deck, architecture (and is due to be tested in Brazil in deepwater in using just a crane wire (anti-torsion).

Q1 2022) to be based from a surface asset with a LARS. This could be an autonomous vessel, which is part of the ? rm’s uLARS vision of the future, and would provide a surface communi- Norway’s uSEA is developing both a mid-water LARS for cations link, so the vehicle could be remote controlled, and underwater intervention drones (UiDs, as Equinor called power. Hydrone R would operate out of these garages either them) and a USV to deploy it and act as a shuttle service to tethered or untethered, using a high bandwidth optical link, take underwater vehicles between work sites. The 24m-long while FlatFish would operate untethered, on up to 150km ex- hybrid diesel-electric USV is being designed to support mid- cursions, with a low bandwidth link or no/ limited communi- water docking, charging and communications with UiDs or cations link, he said. AUVs using uSEA’s uLARS, but also to be able to lift them up

Kawasaki’s SPICE AUV, acquired by Modus.

T e HonuWorx concept.

Modus 72 September/October 2021

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