Development of Autonomous Subsea Pipeline Inspection Capabilities

A rapid shift is taking place in the field of subsea survey and inspection, towards remote operations completed by unmanned maritime systems. Levels of automation present in these operations are increasing. This trend is leading to reductions in the size of survey vessels and crew numbers required offshore to complete survey and inspection campaigns. This paper focuses on the application of unmanned, automated technologies to one specific task, inspection of subsea pipelines. The paper reports on a commercial developmental project undertaken between 2018 and 2020, in which an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV), was paired with an Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) to complete pipeline inspection work scopes for Equinor, with survey missions controlled from a remote operations centre on shore. Results and outcomes from the first two phases of this project are presented, from which, lessons learnt are revealed, indicating areas which need to be focused on in the future to further progress developments in this area. The main focus area discussed is onboard AUV process automation, and implementation of automated software functionality, for mission optimisation, and data management and analysis.