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.
