Page 64: of Marine Technology Magazine (September 2023)

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Cool New Tech 100

U Un niver rs s sity of Hou us ston (UH)

S Sm martTouch technology

Courtesy University of Houston perform key inspection repair and maintenance (IRM) tasks can swim along a subsea pipeline to inspect ? ange bolts – precisely and safely under remote control with the potential to bolted connections have accelerated the rate of pipeline acci- increase operational ? exibility. The operations phase, which dents that result in leakage, according to the Bureau of Safety included pipeline inspection and light intervention tasks, and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).

was part of an ongoing contract to provide IRM services for The BSEE is funding the project with a grant to UH re-

Petrobras. The project involved a remote piloting upgrade of searchers Zheng Chen, Bill D. Cook Assistant Professor of the workclass ROV system on board an ROV support vessel. Mechanical Engineering and Gangbing Song, John and Re-

Real-time remote control was achieved via a secure, high- becca Moores Professor of Mechanical Engineering, who are speed, communications link to Subsea7’s Aberdeen Onshore working in collaboration with Oceaneering International and

Control Center. Subsea7 also has two onshore control centers Chevron. “By automating the inspection process with this in Stavanger, Norway. state-of-the art robotic technology, we can dramatically reduce the cost and risk of these important subsea inspections which

University of Houston (UH) researchers are developing will lead to safer operations of offshore oil and gas pipelines an autonomous robot to identify potential pipeline leaks and as less intervention from human divers will be needed,” said structural failures during subsea inspections. The technology Chen, noting that a prototype of the ROV has been tested in will aim to make the inspection process safer and more cost his lab and in Galveston Bay. The experiments demonstrated effective. The SmartTouch technology in development at UH the feasibility of the proposed approach for inspecting the consists of ROVs equipped with multiple stress wave-based looseness of subsea bolted connections. Preliminary studies smart touch sensors, video cameras and scanning sonars that were funded by UH’s Subsea Systems Institute.

64 September/October 2023

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