The Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult and Aberdeen technology developer HonuWorx are set to demonstrate a concept for a submersible mothership that aims to make subsea robotics a sustainable and cost-effective solution for offshore wind farms.
The project, funded by Innovate UK, will develop Ridley, a submersible platform that can transport large robots and remote operated vehicles (ROVs) to offshore sites and release them directly under the water.
The partners said that by transporting the ROVs in a lightweight, autonomous submersible, much of this financial and environmental cost can be eliminated.
“Once at site, the platform submerges to deploy subsea robots without the need for crane drops, which means deployment is possible in rough weather and stress on the robot’s sensors and tooling is reduced,” they said.
HonuWorx distributed control centres will allow for remote supervision from shore, while equipping the mothership with charging points to resolve battery life issues that restrict the use of ROVs at sea.
ORE Catapult operations and maintenance centre of excellence general manager Ben George said: “The offshore wind industry recognises that robotics and automation are key technologies to ensure decades of continued growth for the sector: sending people to ever more remote and deep-water sites will become progressively more difficult and expensive,.
“Cost reduction, safety improvement and operational integration: those three challenges are driving technology development in offshore wind operations and maintenance.
“That’s why this project is so significant: it addresses those factors head on, while also aligning with our own priorities around accelerating robotic, sustainable and smart technologies in the sector.”
HonuWorx chief executive co-founder Lee Wilson said: “HonuWorx was founded with a vision to accelerate the uptake of underwater robotics technology in vital sectors such as offshore renewables.
“Our team has spent many years pushing the envelope in subsea robotics and believe that existing operating modes can no longer scale sustainably, or at the pace needed to address some of our most critical challenges.
“We’re delighted to be working with ORE Catapult on this project. It will give us an acute sense of the issues offshore wind operators face and how we can optimise our technologies to remove them.”