Periodic Reporting for period 3 - BugWright2 (Autonomous Robotic Inspection and Maintenance on Ship Hulls and Storage Tanks)
Período documentado: 2022-10-01 hasta 2024-03-31
Nowadays, outer hull service/inspection and maintenance is mostly done at dry dock, either manually or with a Remote Automated System. In this condition, complete hull-thickness measurements by discrete sampling account for 5-8 days of work (source: AASA). With its latest available technology, Roboplanet evaluates that the servicing of a 280m ship with three Remote Automated Systems would take about 10 hours and require 6 to 7 trained employees to operate all the platforms. Nevertheless, the robustness and reliability of Autonomous Robotic Systems has not yet been demonstrated enough to convince owners and end-users of their full potential in cost and time savings.
The goal of BUGWRIGHT2 was to develop the building blocks of autonomous ship hull inspection. We imagined a future where teams of robots would be inspecting or cleaning the hull while the ship is at quay, in the harbour, loading its new cargo is our goal. Verifying the ship structural soundness and cleaning its hull would cost minimal downtime if any, leading to safer ships and even improved competitiveness. The development of these technologies amongst end-users let the R&D teams expose their step changes in technological readiness through demonstration on real deployments. BugWright2 focused on unlocking the potential of the robotic ship hull inspection market, to provide high-quality visual and acoustic inspection of these structures or to provide an autonomous cleaning service.
Despite the pandemic, the project achieved significant steps in many directions related to the inspection of large infrastructures. On the technical side, we can cite demonstrations of drone-based mapping technologies from underwater and aerial surveys, automation of surface inspection with magnetic crawlers, new technologies using ultrasonic guided waves, or smart reporting with the use of AR/VR technologies and the localization of all the results in the same localization frame. On the business side, the project supported the development of advanced robotic systems from the participating SMEs. It also allowed the service providers to validate new robotic-based inspections with the class societies, effectively paving the way to a new class of service offering across Europe. Importantly, the project also considered the human and the legal impact of these technologies and developed a road-map towards their integration in the IMO policies.
The goal of BUGWRIGHT2 was to develop the building blocks of autonomous ship hull inspection. We imagined a future where teams of robots would be inspecting or cleaning the hull while the ship is at quay, in the harbour, loading its new cargo is our goal. Verifying the ship structural soundness and cleaning its hull would cost minimal downtime if any, leading to safer ships and even improved competitiveness. The development of these technologies amongst end-users let the R&D teams expose their step changes in technological readiness through demonstration on real deployments. BugWright2 focused on unlocking the potential of the robotic ship hull inspection market, to provide high-quality visual and acoustic inspection of these structures or to provide an autonomous cleaning service.
Despite the pandemic, the project achieved significant steps in many directions related to the inspection of large infrastructures. On the technical side, we can cite demonstrations of drone-based mapping technologies from underwater and aerial surveys, automation of surface inspection with magnetic crawlers, new technologies using ultrasonic guided waves, or smart reporting with the use of AR/VR technologies and the localization of all the results in the same localization frame. On the business side, the project supported the development of advanced robotic systems from the participating SMEs. It also allowed the service providers to validate new robotic-based inspections with the class societies, effectively paving the way to a new class of service offering across Europe. Importantly, the project also considered the human and the legal impact of these technologies and developed a road-map towards their integration in the IMO policies.
During the course of the project a lot of progress have been made on the autonomy of the different platforms. Localization and autonomous navigation have been demonstrated on the aerial crawler, the drones and the underwater platform. Due to series of technical issues, the development of the underwater crawler has been severely limited. In parallel, a significant effort has been done in the direction of the user interfaces, the acoustic data processing as well as the understanding of the legal and sociological challenges. To support integration, 6 integration weeks have been conducted. During RP2 a 12m mock-up representing a section of a bulk carrier has been built in Perama (GLM, Greece) and used in the integration weeks, and a smaller hull section has been built to test acoustic technologies (CETIM, France). Sub-team integration involving multiple partners have also been conducted on storage tanks in France and on ferries in Norway and Austria. During RP3, the integration weeks have been able to operate on a barge in Porto, on decommissioned ship in Lisbon and on a Ferry on the harbour of Perama. On the technical side, one key achievement of this integration work is the joint operation of all the robotic systems in a common network with a common localization frame. This permitted the integration of all these results in an AR demonstrator with the human operator sharing a consistent localization with the robotic agent. Multi-robot operations have also been demonstrated around the ferry in Perama.
BUGWRIGHT2 intended to go beyond the state of the art on the topic of autonomous navigation for inspection robots, interpretation of ultrasonic inspection data, autonomous aerial and underwater visual inspection, heterogeneous multi-robot mission planning and immersive 3D user interfaces for large scale system monitoring. The objective was to combine all these innovations to support the implementation of a large-scale pilot that will demonstrate to end-users that robotic operations on a vessel hull are valuable and efficient.
BUGWRIGHT2 partners have also been working on developing a regulatory and policy blueprint. It will facilitate the use of autonomous robotics for visual inspection and hull cleaning with a view to enhance climate change mitigation benefits derived from cleaner hulls. The blueprint will also look to the future by exploring labour law and market considerations as a result of the automation of traditional shipyard-tasks. This will contribute to making the European research and development industry world leading and highly competitive for robotics technology.
The development of new services has progressed significantly due to the validation of the use of Remote Inspection Tools with the classification societies. Partner GLM has been obtaining certifications from multiple classification societies and has been performing inspections using the project robotic platforms during the course of the project. The innovation is a major push with respect to the state of the art. Nevertheless, the level of autonomy of the project used in commercial operations is still in its infancy and the localization methods are still rudimentary. Despite the proof of concept shown during the project, the deployment of these technology still depends on a complexity level not compatible with the market requirements.
In parallel, IEIC performed a detailed market study that has been updated for the end of the project.
BUGWRIGHT2 partners have also been working on developing a regulatory and policy blueprint. It will facilitate the use of autonomous robotics for visual inspection and hull cleaning with a view to enhance climate change mitigation benefits derived from cleaner hulls. The blueprint will also look to the future by exploring labour law and market considerations as a result of the automation of traditional shipyard-tasks. This will contribute to making the European research and development industry world leading and highly competitive for robotics technology.
The development of new services has progressed significantly due to the validation of the use of Remote Inspection Tools with the classification societies. Partner GLM has been obtaining certifications from multiple classification societies and has been performing inspections using the project robotic platforms during the course of the project. The innovation is a major push with respect to the state of the art. Nevertheless, the level of autonomy of the project used in commercial operations is still in its infancy and the localization methods are still rudimentary. Despite the proof of concept shown during the project, the deployment of these technology still depends on a complexity level not compatible with the market requirements.
In parallel, IEIC performed a detailed market study that has been updated for the end of the project.