Developing the Next Generation of Pipeline Inspection AUV

Abstract The offshore industry needs reliable remotely controlled assets to carry out a range of critical services subsea. ROVs and AUVs have performed these tasks for some time, but as operations venture into deeper and more demanding environments, operators are looking for tools with more capabilities that can function with less human intervention. AUVs have been used for years in place of ROVs to acquire inspection data because they are not tethered to a vessel and can complete preplanned missions without direct control from a pilot. In many cases, an AUV is less costly to deploy and recover than a typical ROV, requires less vessel time on site and can be supported by fewer personnel. Normally, engineers program the AUV's trajectory and mission before a dive, deploy the unit, and download the data for processing and analysis when the dive has been completed. Although AUVs have proven valuable, their usefulness is restricted because of the performance limitations of traditional designs. Torpedo-shaped AUVs can follow a pipeline but because they cannot stop and hover or orbit when anomalies are spotted or when instrument measurements are unclear, they cannot gather all the precise data needed for a pipeline engineer to assess the condition of a pipeline. Oceaneering established an AUV development program to address the limitations of existing designs and to introduce the ability to hover and improve maneuverability. The goal was to produce an AUV capable of delivering high-speed acquisition of the high-quality data normally only obtained by using an ROV. The team understood that, as with all technology development programs, transforming its ambitious development plans into a viable commercial product would be challenging and reached out to engage industry partners. The Freedom program, which has spanned a period of eight years, was supported from the outset by TotalEnergies and ChevronETC and at a later stage of development they were joined by Equinor. The result of this collaborative effort is Freedom™, a hybrid AUV/ROV system that performs accurate, high-speed, single-pass, close-proximity inspections. This project has helped establish a new methodology that expedites development, testing, validation, and approval of technology, involving operators from inception through deployment to provide a high level of comfort to them for adopting serial-number-one technology. This paper explains how that methodology was developed and how it provides a way to expedite product development that aligns with industry needs and simplifies commercialization.