THE SITUATION

To act quickly after a major maritime accident, teams spread out around the world require key information to plan and execute response operations. Current underwater robotic inspection processes require pilots to spend a lot of time manually monitoring, logging, and transporting inspection data, all while navigating complex and hazardous environments. This produces massive amounts of low-value data that must be stored, transported, and reviewed after the fact. This situation results in an increased potential for missing critical data, long delays in getting data to those that need it, more expense and potential loss of lives.

THE CHALLENGE

Automating underwater robotic inspection Automating underwater robotic inspection operations for less human-in-the-loop dependency requires interfacing many technologies like underwater cameras, sonar, lasers, inertial navigation systems, vehicle control systems, pilot interfaces, low-bandwidth communications, cloud connectivity and more, with artificial intelligence and automation software. While automated ROV solutions were the focus of much research and development work, commercial solutions that a typical ROV pilot could easily understand and manage are rare.

THE SOLUTION

VideoRay’s Mission Specialist Defender ROV upgraded with Numurus’ NEPI AI and automation software and SeeByte’s AI target detection models rapidly delivered a smart subsea inspection solution that automated critical data collection and real-time distribution to remote engineering teams. This solution enabled ROV pilots to focus on navigation, not data collection.