Page 46: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Nov/Dec 2023)

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AUTOMATION ROBOTICS

Watch the full interview with

Trey Taylor:

All images courtesy Fairbanks Morse Defense

ROBOTICS in the Engine room he FMD team that Trey Taylor leads is relatively new, kicking off

When talk turns to in 2019 with a baseline product that was looking at monitoring autonomous ships, a equipment, “being able to provide that information back to our technical teams for diagnosis and also to give some data to the end frst question usually

T customer for self-support.” But that was just the start, and in 2020 centers on how routine

Taylor’s team pitched the executive team for more. The result was “a roadmap for fve product verticals that we were interested in: AI, autonomy, robotics, and emergency repair mixed reality capability and secure communications.” and maintenance will be

In the development of robotic solutions for routine and emergency work and conducted with no crew. repair in the engine room, Taylor credits his boss, FMD CEO George Whittier, for instilling his principle: “Don’t aim at the target, aim where the target’s going to be.”

Trey Taylor, Director

So, Taylor and his team of 22 started looking more closely at one of its prime of Digital Innovation, customers – the U.S. Navy. “We know that the Navy has a need, a desire to fll uncrewed assets sometime later this decade, and the timeframe that they want

Fairbanks Morse Defense, these assets to be on deployment without intervention is today only about 30 to discusses FMD’s research 60 days,” said Taylor. “But the long-term goal is 180 days, so our team started looking at systems for how to help the Navy achieve that goal. We quickly and development efforts came to the conclusion that we’re going to have to do maintenance, but how on next-gen engine room do we do maintenance when there’s not a human on board?” Enter the robot.

robotics.

Today, FMD’s work centers not on a single solution, rather a number of dif- ferent manifestations of how engine room robotics will look and work. “We decided a robot platform is probably going to be the right approach, but we By Greg Trauthwein 46 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM