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FORNY20-FORNY2020

Eelume - A Disruptive Subsea Inspection and Intervention System

Alternative title: Eelume - et disruptivt system for subsea inspeksjon og intervensjon

Awarded: NOK 4.6 mill.

Project Manager:

Project Number:

260724

Project Period:

2016 - 2018

Funding received from:

Organisation:

Eelume is a new type of flexible subsea IMR (Inspection, Maintenance and Repair) vehicle. The articulated, flexible body and narrow cross-section provide significant advantages over existing ROVs and torpedo shaped AUVs, including the ability to perform IMR in constrained locations not accessible by existing ROVs. The vehicle will reside subsea for months and will be possible to engage and control from an on-shore control centre. The response time of a resident solution will be considerably reduced compared to existing solutions based on ROVs launched from surface vessels. When not in use, the resident Eelume vehicle will be connected to a subsea docking station. A subsea resident IMR solution needs to cover a range of tasks requiring different sensors, tools and a solution to change between tools. Further, the vehicle should operate on batteries with no tether to allow IMR deep inside complex installations without the risk of tether entanglement and to allow transit between nearby installations. This requires a battery-operated vehicle and solutions to charge the batteries while the vehicle is resident subsea. The extended FORNY project will test and verify a battery and charging solution for the Eelume vehicle that will enable subsea docking and charging of a resident vehicle down to 500 meter depth. The interface will eventually become part of the complete docking and tool-exchange solution and will include wireless data communication for vehicle to shore communication. Our long-term objective is to make the interface generic, open and ultimately a standard for subsea power and data transfer. There is a considerable market for AUV-based IMR-operations. For a system integrator of AUV-based IMR solutions, the North Sea market could be worth between NOK 2 and 4 billion. On a global scale the market potential is significantly larger.

Funding scheme:

FORNY20-FORNY2020