Introduction
From a very early start in 1997 with the surveying of Statoil’s Aasgaard pipeline route with an automated underwater vehicle (AUV), AUV surveying is now established as possibly the most accurate and efficient method for pipeline route and site surveying. The progression has moved through the development of the HUGIN I (depth rating 600m, endurance six hours) via the HUGIN II (now NUI Explorer) (depth rating >1,000m, endurance 36 hours) and finally the HUGIN 3000 that was introduced in 2000. Since introduction, HUGIN 3000 vehicles, with a depth rating of 3,000m and endurance of 60 hours, have successfully accumulated more than 20,000 survey line kilometres in various areas, such as the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), West Africa and the North Sea. In total, more than 30,000km have been accumulated by all these vehicles.
The AUVs have proven their legitimacy through excellent survey data quality and efficiency. However, being a high-technology system, the learning curve has been steep, and several important lessons have been learned both for the manufacturer and the operators. There is also a price to be paid. The investment in the AUV itself is high, but even more important is the investment in organisation to establish a dedicated and qualified AUV operation and survey team.
What is Next ?
Introducing a high-technology survey, AUV is probably more a question of developing the market than the technology itself. Will the very strong improvements in performance and efficiency be sufficient to expand the market to support an AUV industry? Will there be room for all the vehicles ready for introduction?
There are other potential applications for the AUV technology, for example offshore subsea intervention, environmental research and naval applications. What will they look like and when will it happen? This case study covers a retrospect on results obtained, lessons learned and some thoughts on the future.
The History
Since early 1990, there has been a close co-operation with the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) on AUV developments and field activities. The main focus has been towards civilian applications and the military use of AUVs for mine counter-measure, etc.
The dual developments have been directed towards the main applications of:
- commercial offshore surveying;
- military naval applications (mine counter- measure, etc.); and
- research and environmental monitoring.
Other key team members have been:
- Statoil;
- NUI AS (Norwegian Underwater Intervention AS);
- The Norwegian Navy;
- C&C Technologies Inc, Lafayette, USA;
- Geoconsult AS, Norway;
- BP; and
- Norsk Hydro.
The dual development strategy has allowed naval and research resources and funding to be focused towards the development of the key enabling technologies (power, navigation, vehicle control, payload integration, etc.) while the parallel offshore surveying has provided valuable feedback and experience on the HUGIN concept, technology components and reliability.
Category:
Transportation
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