Page 46: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Jan/Feb 2020)

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FEATURE ROVs

Source: Eelume having robots for permanent subsea service. US subsea ser- stration event, organized by Stinger AS, a specialist subsea vices and technology ? rm Oceaneering has been plough- technology ? rm, in Norway last year, that other ? elds are ing work into its Freedom vehicle, a scale version of which being considered for UiDs, including Johan Sverdrup, Jo- has been used for intensive software development in Nor- han Castberg and Bay du Nord. “Then there are all the way and was then also demonstrated performing docking brown? elds that should be supported by some drones and on the SDS, using acoustics, visual markers and machine we need to look into how we’re going to do that.” vision, and the magnetic ? eld of an inductive connector to For this to happen, infrastructure needs to be in place – home in to the docking plate. Offshore trials of a full-scale such as power networks, to recharge vehicles – and subsea vehicle on a UK pipeline inspection project are expected equipment needs to be vehicle friendly. Looking ahead, to this year before it goes into commercial operation. Mean- a world where different vendor vehicles can dock in dif- while, Saipem, has been working hard on its HyDrone se- ferent docking stations, how will how they connect into ries of vehicles, one of which is set to be deployed at Equi- different data and control networks be managed? This is nor’s Njord ? eld under a commercial contract this year. something Jan Christian Torvestad, from Equinor, has

Another ? rm, Subsea 7, has its autonomous inspection ve- been considering. hicle (AIV), which has performed a structured inspection “If I have a cell phone with Norwegian subscription I can of a subsea tree in “complete autonomous mode”, having still travel to America and use it, even if the service is pro- navigated there on its own. vider not there – we have agreements. With a standardized

Much – but not all – of this activity has been spurred docking station, I can get power, and communication and on by Equinor, which paid for SDS to be built, with one then a service provider making sure that if a drone docking installed at a test site off Trondheim, one due at the Ås- on an Equinor docking station is connected to the correct gard ? eld, to test a tethered version of another concept control room,” he says. “If it goes to a Shell docking station, – Eelume, built by a Trondheim based company – and the will it still get the same control room? The service IT and third being used for testing by Saipem ahead of its deploy- architecture in the background needs to be considered. It’s ment. The ? rm is understood to be looking at having seven part of the puzzle. It could be an equivalent of a SIM card, on the Snorre expansion project in order to install resident proving who connects, and then a dynamic ? ow of data to drones. Rune Aase, VP at Equinor, told a drone demon- where it needs to go; the cloud, control room, operator, etc.” 46 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM