AI-Driven Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Makes Debut Offshore Scotland

September 23, 2024, by Adnan Durakovic

Deep technology company Beam has deployed what the company describes as the world’s first autonomous underwater vehicle (UAV) driven by artificial intelligence (AI).

The technology has already been used to inspect jacket structures on the Seagreen offshore wind farm, a joint venture partnership between SSE Renewables, TotalEnergies and PTTEP, in a commercial environment.

According to Beam, this technology promises to revolutionise the field of marine technology and underwater robotics. By leveraging advanced AI, this technology can perform complex underwater tasks with no human intervention, significantly boosting the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of underwater inspections and surveys, Beam said.

Inspections of offshore wind sites are typically manual and time-intensive. Moving away from remote operation, coupled with the streaming of data directly back to shore, is expected to allow offshore workers to concentrate on the more complex elements of their roles. This AI-driven way of working is also said to reduce inspection timelines by up to 50 per cent, which in turn cuts operational costs.

The use of this technology is also said to provide other benefits in improving inspection data quality and enabling 3D reconstruction of assets alongside visual data.

Beam will be rolling out this new technology across its fleet of DP2 vessels, ROVs and AUVs throughout 2025 and 2026.

”Automation can revolutionise how we carry out inspection and maintenance of offshore wind farms, helping to reduce both costs and timelines,” Beam’s CEO, Brian Allen, said.

”Looking ahead to the future, the potential of this technology is huge for the industry, and success in these initial projects is vital for us to progress and realise this vision. This wouldn’t be possible without forward-thinking customers like SSE Renewables who are willing to go on the journey with us.”

Seagreen has been operational since October 2023 and is the world’s deepest fixed-bottom offshore wind farm.

The success of Beam’s project is expected to provide important learnings for the use of autonomous tech on offshore wind superstructures. The data collected by Beam will be used to maintain operational reliability at the wind farm, providing insight into areas such as marine growth and any potential erosion at the foundations.

Matthew Henderson, Technical Asset Manager – Substructure and Asset Lifecycle at SSE Renewables, said: ”At SSE, we have a mantra that “if it’s not safe, we don’t do it”. Beam’s technology demonstrates that autonomous inspections can reduce the personnel we need to send offshore for planned inspections, while speeding up planned works and collecting rich data-sets to inform asset integrity planning. As we move further offshore, and into deeper waters – the ability to collect high quality inspection data in a low-risk manner is imperative to us delivering our Net Zero Acceleration Programme.”