Page 34: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Jul/Aug 2021)

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FEATURE ROBOTICS orwegian company Kongsberg Ferrotech has over more than fve years, the company has built the Nautilus come up with an entirely new solution. The subsea habitat; a self-propelled pipeline inspection and repair company has developed a self-propelled robot- system delivering DNV qualifed composite repairs even for ic system for performing close inspection and through-wall defects.

N in-situ composite and soon also 3D printed “Nautilus is the frst ever robotic solution for inspection, repairs, to rectify defects, restoring integrity and prevent in- repair and maintenance of subsea pipelines,” says Carlsen. tegrity loss. The company calls it ‘taking the workshop to the It’s a robotic inspection and repair system that lands over a defect’ and it’s targeting subsea pipelines and cables. pipeline defect (already identifed and located through inter-

The company was founded in 2014 in Norway’s Kongs- nal pigging), then creates a dry controlled habitat in which berg region – a strong subsea hub, despite its distance from it can then further inspect the defect, delineate how it needs the sea. CEO Christopher Carlsen comes from FMC Tech- to be repaired, then prepare the pipeline for repair and then nologies (now part of TechnipFMC), while technical man- perform the repair.

ager Torgeir Bræin was at Equinor and FMC Technologies “A single robot can cater for a range of diameters – you before that. They’re joined by Lois de la Torre, an entrepre- can build a repair clamp, in-situ using polymers and carbon neur who comes with background from coating and pipeline fber, also cutting out lead times,” says Carlsen. “And it can be repair industry. deployed from a vessel of opportunity.” To give an idea of its

The company’s frst target is composite repairs. “Compos- scale, the robot for 8-16 in. pipelines weighs about 4 tons and ite repairs are now well-known topside, but there have been measures about 3m x 2m x 3m.

relatively few subsea applications,” says Carlsen. “We think It’s similar to habitats that have been built for carrying that’s mainly due to the diffculty in applying it in a con- out welding on subsea pipelines, except it’s designed to re- trolled and repeatable way (subsea).” To solve this challenge, pair rather than replace defects. It’s also self-propelled, us-

Kongsberg Ferrotech’s

Nautilus subsea pipeline repair habitat.

Kongsberg Ferrotech 34 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM