Norway’s Kongsberg Maritime and Statoil have signed an agreement with Eelume, a Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) spin-off company, to drive a new technology that aims to reduce costs related to subsea inspection, maintenance and repair (IMR) operations.
Following 10 years of research on snake robotics, Eelume is now developing a swimming robot that is capable of carrying out underwater inspections and maintenance. The robots will be able to carry out light intervention jobs on the seabed to reduce the use of large and expensive vessels.
The robot has a snake-like form that is slender and flexible to provide easy access to confined areas that are more challenging to access via standard technology. The Eelume robot can be installed on existing and new fields to carry out visual inspections, cleaning, adjusting valves and chokes, which account for a large part of the total subsea inspection and intervention.
Eelume is founded by academics from NTNU, while Kongsberg Maritime brings 25 years of experience and technology development within marine robotics and Statoil provides access to real installations for testing and qualification.
Once the robot is proven in the oil and gas subsea industry, it is likely to see a widening of uses into offshore renewables and marine construction.
Ship Efficiency Review News
To contact the reporter responsible for this article, please email editor@fathom-mi.com
