I-AUV Docking and Panel Intervention at Sea

The use of commercially available autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) has increased during the last fifteen years. While they are mainly used for routine survey missions, there is a set of applications that nowadays can be only addressed by manned submersibles or work-class remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) equipped with teleoperated arms: the intervention applications. To allow these heavy vehicles controlled by human operators to perform intervention tasks, underwater structures like observatory facilities, subsea panels or oil-well Christmas trees have been adapted, making them more robust and easier to operate. The TRITON Spanish founded project proposes the use of a light-weight intervention AUV (I-AUV) to carry out intervention applications simplifying the adaptation of these underwater structures and drastically reducing the operational cost. To prove this concept, the Girona 500 I-AUV is used to autonomously dock into an adapted subsea panel and once docked perform an intervention composed of turning a valve and plugging in/unplugging a connector. The techniques used for the autonomous docking and manipulation as well as the design of an adapted subsea panel with a funnel-based docking system are presented in this article together with the results achieved in a water tank and at sea.This work was supported by the Spanish project DPI2014-57746-C3 (MERBOTS Project) and by Generalitat Valenciana under Grant GVA-PROMETEO/2016/066. The University of Girona wants to thank the SARTI group for their collaboration with the TRITON project

I-AUV Docking and Panel Intervention at Sea

The use of commercially available autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) has increased during the last fifteen years. While they are mainly used for routine survey missions, there is a set of applications that nowadays can be only addressed by manned submersibles or work-class remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) equipped with teleoperated arms: the intervention applications. To allow these heavy vehicles controlled by human operators to perform intervention tasks, underwater structures like observatory facilities, subsea panels or oil-well Christmas trees have been adapted, making them more robust and easier to operate. The TRITON Spanish founded project proposes the use of a light-weight intervention AUV (I-AUV) to carry out intervention applications simplifying the adaptation of these underwater structures and drastically reducing the operational cost. To prove this concept, the Girona 500 I-AUV is used to autonomously dock into an adapted subsea panel and once docked perform an intervention composed of turning a valve and plugging in/unplugging a connector. The techniques used for the autonomous docking and manipulation as well as the design of an adapted subsea panel with a funnel-based docking system are presented in this article together with the results achieved in a water tank and at sea.This work was supported by the Spanish project DPI2014-57746-C3 (MERBOTS Project) and by Generalitat Valenciana under Grant GVA-PROMETEO/2016/066. The University of Girona wants to thank the SARTI group for their collaboration with the TRITON project

Intervention AUVs: The Next Challenge

While commercially available AUVs are routinely used in survey missions, a new set of applications exist which clearly demand intervention capabilities. The maintenance of: permanent underwater observatories, submerged oil wells, cabled sensor networks, pipes and the deployment and recovery of benthic stations are a few of them. These tasks are addressed nowadays using manned submersibles or work-class ROVs, equipped with teleoperated arms under human supervision. Although researchers have recently opened the door to future I-AUVs, a long path is still necessary to achieve autonomous underwater interventions. This paper reviews the evolution timeline in autonomous underwater intervention systems. Milestone projects in the state of the art are reviewed, highlighting their principal contributions to the field. To the best of the authors knowledge, only three vehicles have demonstrated some autonomous intervention capabilities so far: ALIVE, SAUVIM and GIRONA 500, being the last one the lightest one. In this paper GIRONA 500 I-AUV is presented and its software architecture discussed. Recent results in different scenarios are reported: 1) Valve turning and connector plugging/unplugging while docked to a subsea panel, 2) Free floating valve turning using learning by demonstration, and 3) Multipurpose free-floating object recovery. The paper ends discussing the lessons learned so far

An Intervention-AUV learns how to perform an underwater valve turning

Intervention autonomous underwater vehicles (I-AUVs) are a promising platform to perform intervention task in underwater environments, replacing current methods like remotely operate underwater vehicles (ROVs) and manned sub-mersibles that are more expensive. This article proposes a complete system including all the necessary elements to perform a valve turning task using an I-AUV. The knowledge of an operator to perform the task is transmitted to an I-AUV by a learning by demonstration (LbD) algorithm. The algorithm learns the trajectory of the vehicle and the end-effector to accomplish the valve turning. The method has shown its feasibility in a controlled environment repeating the learned task with different valves and configurations

Visually-Guided Manipulation Techniques for Robotic Autonomous Underwater Panel Interventions

The long term of this ongoing research has to do with increasing the autonomy levels for underwater intervention missions. Bearing in mind that the speci c mission to face has been the intervention on a panel, in this paper some results in di erent development stages are presented by using the real mechatronics and the panel mockup. Furthermore, some details are highlighted describing two methodologies implemented for the required visually-guided manipulation algorithms, and also a roadmap explaining the di erent testbeds used for experimental validation, in increasing complexity order, are presented. It is worth mentioning that the aforementioned results would be impossible without previous generated know-how for both, the complete developed mechatronics for the autonomous underwater vehicle for intervention, and the required 3D simulation tool. In summary, thanks to the implemented approach, the intervention system is able to control the way in which the gripper approximates and manipulates the two panel devices (i.e. a valve and a connector) in autonomous manner and, results in di erent scenarios demonstrate the reliability and feasibility of this autonomous intervention system in water tank and pool conditions.This work was partly supported by Spanish Ministry of Research and Innovation DPI2011-27977-C03 (TRITON Project) and DPI2014-57746-C3 (MERBOTS Project), by Foundation Caixa Castell o-Bancaixa and Universitat Jaume I grant PID2010-12, by Universitat Jaume I PhD grants PREDOC/2012/47 and PREDOC/2013/46, and by Generalitat Valenciana PhD grant ACIF/2014/298. We would like also to acknowledge the support of our partners inside the Spanish Coordinated Projects TRITON and MERBOTS: Universitat de les Illes Balears, UIB (subprojects VISUAL2 and SUPERION) and Universitat de Girona, UdG (subprojects COMAROB and ARCHROV)

A New Virtual Reality Interface for Underwater Intervention Missions

Ponencia presentada en IFAC-PapersOnLine, Volume 53, Issue 2, 2020, Pages 14600-14607Nowadays, most underwater intervention missions are developed through the well-known work-class ROVs (Remote Operated Vehicles), equipped with teleoperated arms under human supervision. Thus, despite the appearance on the market of the first prototypes of the so-called I-AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicles for Intervention), the most mature technology associated with ROVs continues to be trusted. In order to fill the gap between ROVs and incipient I-AUVs technology, new research is under progress in our laboratory. In particular, new HRI (Human Robot Interaction) capabilities are being tested inside a three-year Spanish coordinated project focused on cooperative underwater intervention missions. In this work new results are presented concerning a new user interface which includes immersion capabilities through Virtual Reality (VR) technology. It is worth noting that a new HRI module has been demonstrated, through a pilot study, in which the users had to solve some specific tasks, with minimum guidance and instructions, following simple Problem Based Learning (PBL) scheme. Finally, it is noticeable that, although this is only a work in progress, the obtained results are promising concerning friendly and intuitive characteristics of the developed HRI module. Thus, some critical aspects, like complexity fall, training time and cognitive fatigue of the ROV pilot, seem more affordable now

Cooperative Rendezvous and Docking for Underwater Robots Using Model Predictive Control and Dual Decomposition

This paper considers the problem of rendezvous and docking with visual constraints in the context of underwater robots with camera-based navigation. The objective is the convergence of the vehicles to a common point while maintaining visual contact. The proposed solution includes the design of a distributed model predictive controller based on dual decomposition, which allows for optimization in a decentralized fashion. The proposed distributed controller enables rendezvous and docking between vehicles while maintaining visual contact.acceptedVersion© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works

3D laser scanner for underwater manipulation

Nowadays, research in autonomous underwater manipulation has demonstrated simple applications like picking an object from the sea floor, turning a valve or plugging and unplugging a connector. These are fairly simple tasks compared with those already demonstrated by the mobile robotics community, which include, among others, safe arm motion within areas populated with a priori unknown obstacles or the recognition and location of objects based on their 3D model to grasp them. Kinect-like 3D sensors have contributed significantly to the advance of mobile manipulation providing 3D sensing capabilities in real-time at low cost. Unfortunately, the underwater robotics community is lacking a 3D sensor with similar capabilities to provide rich 3D information of the work space. In this paper, we present a new underwater 3D laser scanner and demonstrate its capabilities for underwater manipulation. In order to use this sensor in conjunction with manipulators, a calibration method to find the relative position between the manipulator and the 3D laser scanner is presented. Then, two different advanced underwater manipulation tasks beyond the state of the art are demonstrated using two different manipulation systems. First, an eight Degrees of Freedom (DoF) fixed-base manipulator system is used to demonstrate arm motion within a work space populated with a priori unknown fixed obstacles. Next, an eight DoF free floating Underwater Vehicle-Manipulator System (UVMS) is used to autonomously grasp an object from the bottom of a water tank

Next Generation IMR RROV/AUV/eROV operations

Master's thesis in Technology and Operations ManagementThe oil and gas industry is rapidly changing. The oil price is fluctuating and there has currently been an excess of personnel. Today's Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) operations are demanding and costly, requiring a support vessel at all times. As subsea assets are aging, the need for inspection and new technology at a lower cost is increasing. The specific problem for this thesis was to: ● Challenge today’s operations setup and mindset of ROV operation and look into future Resident ROV (RROV) / Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) and Empowered ROV (eROV) operations. ● Demonstrate possible economic benefit by adapting to new concepts and new technologies (business driven innovation). New technologies such as Resident ROV (RROV) and Empowered ROV (eROV) are currently introduced and under development. The main feature of this technology is that it allows for remote piloting from an Onshore Control Center (OCC). There appears to be a paradigm change in which the ROV and the industry is becoming more and more electrified and autonomous. Comparison is made to other industries such as the aviation and automobile industry. In the latter, there is a powertrain shift moving to hybrids and electric vehicles. Key words in this new paradigm are “autonomous”, “resident” and “electric” (ref. FFU conference 2017). This master thesis investigates ROV operations and the state of the art technology that is currently available. It outlines how the Company’s operations are planned and executed today and details new ROV technology under development. The thesis also reviews the Company’s resources available and estimates cost of establishing and running an Onshore Control Center (OCC). As a theoretical basis, the master thesis uses Integrated (remote) Operations, Digitalization trends, Sharing Economy and Cost Effectiveness, Scenario Thinking and Dynamic resources and capabilities. Today’s operations are planned manually. It requires a surface support vessel at all times due to the umbilical connected to the ROV. The ROV is controlled locally from the vessel. These operations are costly and gives limited flexibility. An incentive for removing the umbilical - ROV working independently - has been going on for decades. New developing technology allows signals to be transferred via fiber or using telecommunications, which opens up for controlling the ROV from an OCC. An OCC will give more flexibility because one ROV crew can control several ROVs at different locations subsea. This gives operational benefits. Until ROVs in the future are fully autonomous (long term future scenario), a supporting vessel is required to move the eROV from one location to the other. The thesis uses towing as a concept to put the new eROV technology into an “operational context” in order to maximize use of the eROV concept. Future operations also require a subsea infrastructure with hubs/docking stations to recharge the eROV and gain access to tooling etc. Until an infrastructure is fully established, relocation of the eROV from one location to another should be looked into in more detail - to optimize operations. Better planning and sharing of resources could lead to a more sustainable business model. This thesis shows that it is feasible to use towing as a method to relocate the ROV if the eROV concept is fully introduced and developed. During the study the importance of people, processes and governance appeared - rather than just focusing on new technology. In order to succeed implementing new technology it is important that man, technology and organisation are connected and that collaboration is recognized. If the cost assumptions in this thesis are correct, and if sharing of other support vessels/optimized operations is viable, the eROV concept could be a more sustainable business model. A certain number of ROV hours are needed to get the hourly ROV rate down as it is very costly to run an OCC around the clock (24 hours a day, 7 days a week)