WASP to Make Case For Autonomous Vessels in Offshore Wind

A new joint industry project led by ASV Global is set to explore the technical, regulatory and societal issues of using autonomous surface vessels, integrated with existing manned shipping operations, to support offshore wind farm operations and maintenance.

The ultimate goal of the GBP 900,000 project, which is part funded by Innovate UK and led by ASV Global, in partnership with the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, SeaRoc Group, Houlder and University of Portsmouth, is to develop a timeline for the phased introduction of autonomous vessels.

Project Roles

As part of the 18-month Windfarm Autonomous Ship Project (WASP) project, ASV Global will be further advancing its autonomous control system to tackle the challenges presented by the operation of autonomous vessels in the constrained environment of a wind farm. ORE Catapult will work on the use cases and validation of the cost savings created by the project.

SeaRoc Group will be extending its SeaPlanner software to assist with the monitoring and operation of autonomous vessels and the introduction of advanced cargo planning systems. The University of Portsmouth will assist with route planning, logistics management and system analytics. Houlder will develop the vessel design and a handling system to enable autonomous cargo transfer.

The project team will work with industry sponsor Ørsted, who will provide use cases from its Hornsea One offshore wind farm, located 120km off the Yorkshire coast. Manned operations will be used as the baseline to compare the time, cost and performance of unmanned ships in different roles, including asset surveillance, security patrols, component spares supply and crew transfer operations.

New products will come from adaptation of marine co-ordinator systems to operate with both manned and unmanned vessels, optimised navigation systems from autonomous vessels and robotic systems to support offshore operations.

ASV Global Senior Director, Business Development Dan Hook said: “The WASP project provides the perfect opportunity to show how far autonomous vessels have progressed. A sector roadmap for the integration of autonomous vessels into offshore wind farm operations and maintenance will enable the supply chain to prioritise and address the opportunities and challenges.”

The Benefits

Previous research has found that vessels can account for as much as 60% of an offshore wind farm’s operating costs, which in themselves make up almost a quarter of the total lifecycle costs. These costs could be significantly reduced through the introduction of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (RAI), ORE Catapult said.

Increasing use of autonomous vessels is also expected to lead to the creation of highly skilled, cross-sector jobs in areas such as the integration and planning of autonomous vessels, boosting the UK’s maritime and digital supply chains.

“Automotive, aerospace, and defence are all embracing autonomous systems to carry out some of what we term the ‘5Ds’ – jobs which are dull, dangerous, dirty, distributed and dear (expensive),” Simon Cheeseman, Strategy Manager at ORE Catapult, said.

“Our industry is always looking for ways to reduce the need to send people offshore in a hazardous environment, at the same time as driving down costs whilst continually improving performance. WASP will assess the issues involved in integrating unmanned vessels operations and start to build the evidence to validate our initial findings.”