A Targeted Autonomous Inspection Service for Offshore Wind

在这个项目中，英国中小企业Sulmara Subsea和国际海上海底服务提供商与BeeX合作，BeeX是新加坡国立大学的一家新加坡深科技公司，完成工业研究，为海上风电场（OWF）实施开创性的海底检查服务。全球对可再生能源的需求不断增加，导致OWF行业的快速持续增长。随着行业的发展，运营商面临着越来越大的压力，需要降低运营和维护（O&M）成本，但水下检查是确保资产寿命最大化的关键。还存在越来越大的压力，以消除在O&M活动期间人员出现在OWF油田内的不必要的要求，以解决英国沃茨中OWF的不良安全记录，该水域福尔斯远低于UKCS上游石油和天然气。使用传统的人工密集型方法进行检查，需要大量的船员和船只，是资源密集型的，如果OWF产能的预计增长（到2030年英国现有产能的5倍）在短期内实现，那么这种情况将越来越不可持续。该项目正在推进的解决方案涉及一种有针对性的自动化方法，用于检查OWF内的主要海底资产，利用尖端的机器人即服务（RaaS）概念。这将借鉴BeeX完成的悬停自主水下航行器（HAUVs）十年的研发工作，并将涉及扩大原型HAUV，这将成为Sulmara推出的检查服务的核心组成部分。安装在这辆车上的传感器有效载荷的选择，以及服务的操作方法，将由第二个项目合作伙伴斯特拉斯克莱德大学（UoS）进行的研究提供信息。参与该项目的UoS学者将利用海底资产完整性和材料故障/失效机制领域的广泛知识库，协助Sulmara开发基于风险的检查方法，将水下检查的重点放在海底资产的关键区域和组件上。这种方法旨在优化水下检查，既消除了将大量熟练操作员运送到OWF进行检查活动的要求，又将最大限度地减少总体检查要求。Sulmara目前是OWF运营商的调查服务供应商，但是，通过利用BeeX的HAUV检测平台，Sulmara计划通过引入更低成本，更高效，低碳的解决方案来扩展其当前的服务产品，打入资产完整性市场，取代当前的检测服务提供商。

In this project, Sulmara Subsea, a UK SME, and international offshore subsea service provider, is partnering with BeeX, a Singapore based deeptech spinoff from the National University of Singapore, in completing industrial research leading to implementation of a ground-breaking subsea inspection service for offshore windfarms (OWF). Increasing global demand for renewable energy sources has resulted in rapid, sustained growth of the OWF industry. As the industry expands, operators are under increasing pressure to reduce operations and maintenance (O&M) costs, yet underwater inspections are key in ensuring maximised longevity of assets. There is also mounting pressure to remove unnecessary requirements for personnel to be present within OWF fields during O&M activities, to address the poor safety record of OWFs in UK waters, which falls way below UKCS upstream Oil & Gas.To conduct inspections using conventional manually intensive methods, requires large crews and vessels, is resource intensive, and is proving increasingly unsustainable if projected increases in OWF capacity (5x current capacity in the UK by 2030) will be realised in the near-term. The solution being advanced within this project, involves a targeted, automated approach to inspection of the major subsea assets within OWFs, utilising a cutting-edge Robotics as a Service (RaaS) concept. This will draw on a decade of R&D work on Hovering Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (HAUVs) completed by BeeX, and will involve scaling up a prototype HAUV, which will form the central component of the inspection service to be rolled out by Sulmara. The choice of sensor payloads installed on this vehicle, and the operational methodology of the service, will be informed by research undertaken by a second project partner, the University of Strathclyde (UoS). UoS academics involved in this project, will draw on an extensive knowledgebase in the field of subsea asset integrity, and material fault/failure mechanisms, to assist Sulmara in developing a risk-based inspection methodology, honing the focus of underwater inspections on critical area and components of the subsea assets. This approach aims to optimise subsea inspections, both removing requirements for large crews of skilled operators to be transported to OWFs for inspection campaigns, and will minimise overall inspection requirements. Sulmara are currently a supplier of survey services to OWF operators, however, through utilisation of BeeX's HAUV inspection platform, Sulmara plans to expand their current service offering, breaking into the asset integrity market, displacing current inspection service providers, through introduction of a lower-cost, more efficient, lower carbon solution.