Universal AUV Pinless Charging and Data Transfer Interface

Bergen-based WiSub brought together an international consortium of industry and academia for this project to develop a key technology for the enabling of autonomous exploration of the vastness of the world's oceans. The goal of the project has been to enable the reliable connection of underwater robot drones, to charge them and talk with them. Autonomy removes people from this high-risk environment and enables robots to perform work that would be repetitive and exhausting, extending humankind's reach into these unexplored depths, to increase and accelerate our understanding and sustainable use of this resource-rich environment. By reducing or eliminating the presence of surface ships to support AUV operations, we also reduce personnel risk and climate change gasses and optimize at-sea operations to achieve a safer, more effective and sustainable use of energy and human resources. This project is one of the first of its kind supported under the BN-21 Brazil-Norway research and development collaboration initiative. The project's Brazilian scope has been led by easySubsea of Rio de Janeiro. Participants in the Norwegian project scope join from Sweden, the UK, Poland and from here in Norway. The project partners have researched and developed a standardized connection method to deliver wireless communication and power underwater, removing one of the key barriers to providing continuous presence for underwater observation and operations. Through this project, underwater robots such as Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) are becoming enabled to automatically connect to underwater cabled networks, buoys, and unmanned surface installations and vessels. These battery-powered robots are designed to swim through the underwater environment freely without a cable attached, but they need to connect for re-charging and to report data to oceanographers and petroleum engineers. Today, AUV systems must be recovered to the deck of a ship to connect power and data. Automation of underwater charging and data download reduces or eliminates personnel at-sea by reducing the need for the surface vessel, increasing safety of ocean exploration as well as the reach and speed with which we can achieve results. This project has developed critical wireless connections to charge and talk with robots that will live and work in the ocean 24 hours a day, seven days a week. These robots will gather important information to help us understand and make better use of the ocean's resources as well as automating processes within our production of subsea hydrocarbon resources. The project results also enable the AUV to send power from the AUV battery to equipment deployed in the ocean. Power distribution and data communication is now possible without the need to install large, expensive underwater cable network, because the underwater drones can distribute power through this new interface instead. Imagine no longer needing to build roads to drive on, when driverless helicopter taxis carry us to our destinations instead of us driving our cars; eliminating the need for underwater cable infrastructure is like eliminating the need for roads. The project has also gathered data on environmental effects such as calcareous deposits. The environmental studies with project partners have investigated factors to help inform researchers to further improve technology developments. WiSub's focus on consistent power transfer over a gap is an evolutionary step over other inductive connection systems. Salinity, temperature and depth data has been gathered from various oceanographic environments internationally to characterize sound velocity profiles and research performance improvements of acoustic communication technology. Results from the Norwegian project continue to contribute to easySubsea's project scope which extends through 2019. Improvement of acoustic communication in Brazilian offshore waters is particularly important to project participant easySubsea who is developing the communication system's acoustic transmission component. The project results combine several underwater technologies: pinless inductive-based power transfer, microwave-based and acoustic data transfer, and AUV control system design. The project results enable a connection standard for underwater equipment the way that the USB connector has enabled a standard for devices to connect to the personal computer. By enabling underwater automation, sensor networks and systems, the project results shall increase our ability to sustainably observe and interact with the "deep unknown" of the world's last frontier, improving our knowledge and management of our oceans which contain some of the world's most valuable natural resources. This project has been awarded financial support from the Research Council of Norway, under project number 262516 entitled "Universal AUV Pinless Charging and Data Transfer Interface".

-

In the same way that surface-based industries strive for greater automation, the subsea industry is striving for increased automation to attain the associated benefits. Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) technology has evolved significantly since their first use in 1957, now having progressed to a level where a persistent presence in subsea fields is increasingly possible. It is a common operator goal to have AUVs permanently operational in the field to provide 100% monitoring of subsea systems as well as reduce dependence on tethered, vessel-based Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) systems to perform inspection or intervention tasks that require time-critical response. A robust, reliable interface system is required to enable this leap forward, to enable charging of the AUV, downloading of data and re-tasking of the AUV for the next mission. The R&D project proposed here will result in a prototype system that can realize this ambitious goal. This joint call between Finep of Brazil and the Research Council of Norway (RCN)has resulted in this application which joins easySubsea and WiSub resources to research and develop a standardized AUV communications interface which would enable a common, cost-effective and easy way to support AUV systems for remote inspection and intervention, obviating the need for continuous surface support vessels. The proposed R&D would ensure that power and data communication were provided to the AUV for charging and communication; persistent communications would be assured through development of a backup communications system, necessary redundancy to insure against failure of complex and expensive umbilical systems. The reduction of costs and complexity would be realized at both an OPEX and CAPEX level. Enabling AUVs to become resident decreases environmental risk by enabling continuous monitoring of subsea assets (e.g. against hydrocarbon leaks) and reduces environmental impact as AUV systems do not emit CO2 as do surface vessels.