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TECH FILE ROBOTICS

With a background in subsea and offshore, coming up with new ideas is the norm’ for UK-based engineering consultancy

STL (Submarine

Technology Limited), writes Elaine Maslin. he last few years have been no different. The company has been focusing on ship-based ro- botics, including robotic arms. These aren’t just

T any robotic arms – they’re motion compensated systems for deploying/recovering people and robots to and from ?xed or moving objects. That could be wind techni- cians to an offshore wind turbine or an autonomous un- derwater vehicle (AUV) in and out of the water – all with a single arm system from a vessel.

In fact, STL has developed two different systems, one for moving people to locations up to 20m above the sea surface and another, an articulated system, for launch and recovery of remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and AUVs, using a remote sensing system.

Andreas Fechs, project and business development man- ager at STL, explained both systems at the joint Society of

Underwater Technology (SUT), IMCA and Hydrographic

Society Scotland seminar in Aberdeen in mid-November.

A key goal has been to improve the safety of and ability

REACH to access offshore structures, initially ?xed structures, from ships, including those that are relatively smaller than current gangway-system based vessels, he says. But another goal is to give future uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) more capability.

It’s been a challenge STL has been looking into since the early 2010s, when the need for better access systems

E WIND became an issue, for offshore wind, but also normally unattended oil and gas facilities. While others have now commercially introduced gangway systems, STL has been developing “space stabilisation” and “synchronous stabili- sation”. Its ?rst concept, Neptune, got going in 2012, with november/december 2022 OFFSHORE ENGINEER 53