This project demonstrated the application of HydroSurv Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV) and Sonardyne acoustic communications technology for rapid environmental data collection to Blue Gem Wind, Simply Blue Group and Offshore Wind Consultants (OWC) focusing on the Valorous Floating Offshore Wind (FLOW) Project.
The demonstration, which took place in the Celtic Sea, was part of an extension to the ‘Robotics for a Safer World’ challenge, co-funded by InnovateUK.
Background
Offshore renewable energy projects need data throughout their lifespans, including detailed surveys at the development stage. Data harvesting surveys have traditionally been carried out using conventional vessels with crew onboard. However, as project sites become more challenging and complex to access, there is growing demand for survey solutions that keep people out of harm’s way in safer onshore environments.
Additionally, as the industry strives to reach its net zero emissions targets, developers need low carbon alternatives to complete these critical tasks. Cost is also a key factor, and with suitable design support for robust data collection, a wind farm can reduce failures and associated downtime and their resulting negative impacts on revenue.
Offshore renewable energy projects need to determine the most suitable landfall location to bring the export cables ashore, considering multiple factors including water velocity profiling to assess risk of cable scour. As well as this, detailed understanding of the current conditions helps offshore wind farms understand the environmental pressures that their export cables are required to withstand throughout the project’s lifetime.
Challenges
Accurate spatial and temporal data is a key element to the development of offshore renewable energy projects. Accessibility is often difficult however, with the required frequency of site surveys to gain sufficient data increasing both risk and cost. In addition to this, projects are being placed further from shore, exacerbating the accessibility challenges.
Developers also need to ensure that no damage is done to existing subsea infrastructure, as well as be able to monitor these assets and ensure they are operating correctly throughout the data collection campaign. Weather and sea states need to be constantly monitored, particularly if deploying a traditional, crewed vessel.
Approach
Exeter-based HydroSurv, an innovator in Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV) technology, collaborated with Sonardyne to demonstrate the benefits of USV platforms in providing rapid environmental assessments offshore. Their aim was to show integrated capability using a HydroSurv USV fitted with Sonardyne’s Mini-Ranger 2 Ultra-Short Base Line (USBL) positioning system.
Solution
USVs can visit challenging offshore sites more frequently, at significantly lower cost and with a carbon impact reduction of over 90%. HydroSurv’s zero emission, fully electric REAV-40 USV design is capable of self-transiting to nearshore worksites, offering a day-work capability that enables new ways of collecting data for cable route engineering and more.
Sonardyne’s Mini-Ranger 2 USBL system is popular for use on mid-size USVs because it provides easy to install and use capability to position, track, communicate with and health check and configure/reconfigure mobile and seafloor-based instruments. Like all Sonardyne hardware, it uses Sonardyne’s 6G Wideband spread-spectrum digital signal processing to communicate, track and position any 6G-enabled instruments.
Results
In March 2022 the collaboration team streamed a live, online demonstration to Blue Gem Wind, Simply Blue Group and OWC audiences in multiple locations, harvesting data straight to a cloud portal and showing near real-time seabed data to desk capability.
The integration demonstrated real-world capability of USVs, as platforms for integrated systems and sensors, to execute critical data harvesting campaigns safely and cheaply for the offshore sector, providing near real-time data and information of immediate value to the customer.
This project combined the proven environmental and financial benefits of deploying USV platforms with Ultra-Short Base Line (USBL) underwater positioning and Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) technologies. However, the approach is relevant to many other instrument types and symbiotic systems.
HydroSurv’s larger, longer endurance REAV-60 USV design offers increased capability further offshore in harder to reach locations and more challenging waters for low cost, low carbon data harvesting capability. HydroSurv is now making Mini-Ranger 2 and SprintNAV Mini integration available for customers to specify for turnkey integration into its USV platforms.
Quotes
Alfie Wisdom, Delivery Manager at Blue Gem Wind: “Innovation in the supply chain will play a key role in reducing the costs and risks associated with offshore wind in the Celtic Sea so we were delighted to provide feedback to local companies from the Southwest as they bring new ideas to this exciting sector.”
Jagadish Vallarampara, Senior Metocean Specialist at OWC: “Understanding accurate oceanographic conditions in real-time mode reduces uncertainty and helps the engineering and scientific communities make decisions. Subsea communication for offshore data gathering is vital for upcoming offshore operations where ocean floor information is critical for informed decisions on investments and operations.”
Aidan Thorn, Business Development Manager, Marine Robotics, Sonardyne: “The world is increasingly digital. We now routinely use the cloud in our homes and even the high street, for example. We have all the data we need at our fingertips. It’s time we took more of this capability to our offshore and underwater operations. This project is a step towards that vision.
“Working with HydroSurv, we’ve shown how we can create intelligent networks of sensors and uncrewed platforms. By doing this we can provide users access to the actionable information they need from seabed sensors, in near real-time, wherever they are in the world. What’s more, they can even configure or reconfigure their remote sensors, all from their desktop.
“Put it this way, it’s like having access to your home thermostat from your smart phone, except it’s on the seabed. This is a new digitally enabled way of working, bringing decision-making about operations many kilometres away and hundreds of metres beneath the sea surface, to your fingertips.”
Ian Godfrey, Chief Operating Officer, HydroSurv: “This collaborative, seabed to desk data collection project provided a fantastic opportunity for us to demonstrate a new integrated survey solution for the offshore wind sector. The project has provided a real-world example of the ability to monitor subsea assets at greater frequency, at lower cost and with a significant reduction in carbon emissions when compared to survey campaigns carried out with traditional, crewed vessels.
“We see this integrated solution with HydroSurv’s USV technology and Sonardyne’s subsea communications equipment as a real enabler for the offshore wind sector and others where a win-win reduction in cost and increased visibility of live data and subsea survey asset health provide a new level of service, well suited to the increasingly challenging environments faced by offshore wind farm developers.”