Autonomous Techniques for anthropogenic Structure Ecological Assessment (AT-SEA)

海上成千上万的石油和天然气工业结构正在接近其生命的终点。此时，通常需要将它们移除，并将环境恢复到安全状态。这个过程被称为退役。由于许多这些地点都是旧的（通常超过20年），并且最初是在现行环境法规存在之前钻探的，因此这些地点周围的海床经常受到污染。为确保不会产生有害影响，停用作业需要进行环境评估和随后的监测。退役后可能需要多年的监测，特别是如果一些结构留在原地。在近海环境中进行监测调查既昂贵又耗时，需要船舶和许多专业的航海人员。这一要求虽然至关重要，但将给工业和公众带来相当大的成本。海洋机器人使用计算机系统自行执行调查任务，经常用于对环境进行详细的科学评估。由于它们可以快速收集高质量的数据，这种机器人最近被工业应用于一些任务，但它们仍然需要昂贵的支援船，因为它们不能执行远程任务。最近的技术发展降低了成本，并将这些机器人的范围扩大到数千公里，使从岸上发射的机器人能够对多个地点进行远程评估。这将有许多好处，提高环境信息的质量和数量，同时减少对调查船和船员的昂贵要求。我们将对多个退役场址进行首次完全自主的环境评估。Autosub远程海洋机器人潜艇（“Boaty McBoatface”）将从设得兰群岛的海岸发射，在北海北部的三个退役地点进行访问和环境评估，然后在大约10天后返回，并携带详细的调查信息。机器人将拍摄海底的照片，这些照片将自动拼接在一起，绘制出海底、现有结构和生活在那里的动物的地图。已建立的传感器系统将测量水的一系列特性，包括石油和天然气的存在。除了退役地点，机器人还将访问一个特殊的海洋保护区，我们知道那里有天然气的自然泄漏，以检查机器人是否能够可靠地检测到泄漏，如果它确实发生了。返回岸上后，该项目将检查获得的所有数据，并将其与使用标准调查船方法收集的数据进行比较。我们将测试是否可以从两个数据集中识别出相同的环境趋势，以确定自动化方法是否适合替代标准的调查船操作。该项目还将编制一份完整的案例研究报告，其中包括成本和效益的详细信息、部署的实用信息以及减少风险和提高作业效率的方法。这将被工业、科学家和政府监管机构用来展示这些技术，并将向潜在用户提供必要的信息，以帮助他们采用这些技术。该项目的总体目标是以更低的成本改善北海的环境保护，并展示英国领先的机器人技术如何在全球范围内使用。

Thousands of Oil & Gas industry structures in the sea are approaching the end of their lives. At this time, they typically need to be removed and the environment returned to a safe state. This process is known as decommissioning. As many of these sites are old (typically 20+ years) and originally were drilled before the current environmental regulations existed, there has often been some contamination of the seabed around these sites. To ensure that no harmful effects will occur, decommissioning operations need to be supported by an environmental assessment and subsequent monitoring. Monitoring may be required over many years after decommissioning, especially if some structures are left in place. Monitoring surveys in the offshore environment are expensive and time-consuming, requiring ships and many specialist seagoing personnel. This requirement, although vital, will have a considerable cost for industry and the public.Ocean robots, which use computer systems to carry out survey missions by themselves, are regularly used in detailed scientific assessments of the environment. As they collect very high-quality data quickly, such robots have recently been adopted for some tasks by industry but these still require an expensive support ship as they are not capable of long-range missions. Recent technological developments have cut the cost and expanded the range of these robots to thousands of kilometres, making it possible for long-range assessments of multiple sites to be undertaken with a robot launched from the shore. This would have many advantages, improving the quality and quantity of environmental information while cutting the costly requirement for a survey ship and crew. We will carry out the first fully autonomous environmental assessment of multiple decommissioning sites. The Autosub long-range ocean robot submarine ("Boaty McBoatface") will be launched from the shore in Shetland, visit and carry out an environmental assessment at three decommissioning sites in the northern North Sea, before returning around 10 days later with the detailed survey information onboard. The robot will take photographs of the seabed, and these will be automatically stitched together to make a map of the seafloor, structures present, and the animals that live there. Established sensor systems will measure a range of properties of the water, including the presence of oil and gas. As well as the decommissioned sites, the robot will visit a special marine protected area where we know there are natural leaks of gas, to check the robot can reliably detect a leak if it did occur.On return to shore, the project will examine all the data obtained and compare it to that gathered using standard survey ship methods. We will test if the same environmental trends can be identified from both datasets to determine if the automated approach would be a suitable replacement for standard survey ship operations. The project will also produce a fully documented case study, which includes detailed information on the costs and benefits, practical information on deployments and approaches to reduce the risks and improve the efficiency of operations. This will be used by industry, scientists and government regulators, to demonstrate the techniques and will provide the necessary information to potential users to aid in their adoption. The overall goal of the project is to improve the environmental protection of the North Sea at a reduced cost and to demonstrate how this leading UK robotic technology could be used worldwide.