Page 22: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Nov/Dec 2020)

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FEATURE MARKET OUTLOOK 2021

Fugro has four remote operations centers around the world currently.

Source: Fugro having ‘eyes, ‘ears’ and even ‘hands’ on site remotely will help But rather than coming back to base with a ?ood of data, to increase asset uptime and potentially reduce the number of edge processing, data analytics, and miniaturized sensors will incidents through early identi?cation,” thinks Damian Ling, also help.

Geomatics Advisor at Chevron’s Energy Technology Compa- The same technologies and systems are set to bene?t the ny (ETC), while USVs will increase how much shallow wa- offshore renewables industry, as it looks for ways to provide ter inspection or host an AUV for deep water, without using inspection and maintenance scope across its growing ?eet crewed vessels, he says. of wind farms. “We are seeing residency systems for subsea “I see both methods or services as complementary to achiev- becoming viable,” says Dan Summer, Project Development ing the same goal,” he adds. Manager at the UK’s Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Cat-

Increasing use of survey techniques adopted from terrestrial apult. “IoT and continuous monitoring technologies enable industries, such as photogrammetry, LiDAR, ?ducial land- more predictive maintenance, meaning less trips to site while mark navigation and automatic target recognition, will also remote technologies mean less people offshore.” help increase the ef?ciency of surveillance data collection and “enable autonomous inspection methods and provide data

Electrification products from which we can have additional uses,” says Ling

Some of the underlying technologies that enable remote (his views, not Chevron). Companies like Cathx Ocean, 2G operations and autonomy have become increasingly available

Robotics (photogrammetry), 3D at Depth (LiDAR), and For- over recent years, from terrestrial communications, including sea (landmark navigation) are examples here. satellite and marine 4G networks, to underwater communica- 22 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM