Integrated subsea service provider, N-Sea, and the University of Strathclyde’s Institute of Sensors, Signals and Communications at the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, have secured substantial funding from the Data Lab Innovation Centre for an innovative research project to automate subsea pipeline inspection.

The collaboration combines N-Sea’s state-of-the-art inspection expertise and the University of Strathclyde’s data analytics research.

David Murray, survey and inspection data center manager at N-Sea, said, “We’re enjoying working with the University of Strathclyde on this innovative project and grateful to the Data Lab for supporting this partnership. Our joint collaboration is pivotal to the success of the project, which we hope will transform pipeline inspection operations.

“As a world-leader in subsea pipeline inspection, we have seen ROV technology evolve significantly over the years. However, inspection operations still require ROV pilots and inspection engineers who annotate the data acquired. By working closely together, we aim to automate the inspection process and operate ROVs at previously impossible speeds.”

In the last 10 years, the subsea inspection landscape has come a long way in terms of sensors and high definition cameras; however, the annotation process remains a largely manual process. The approaches and techniques adopted by the University and N-Sea have never before been attempted in the subsea environment.

Source: www.n-sea.com