Autonomous underwater vehicle inspects Scottish wind farm in ‘world first’
Glomar Worker Harbour. Image credit: Beam
Beam, a provider of high technology offshore wind services, has achieved a milestone by deploying what they are calling the world’s first autonomous underwater vehicle driven by artificial intelligence (AI).
The technology was successfully used to inspect jacket structures on the Seagreen offshore wind farm in Scotland, a JV partnership between SSE Renewables, TotalEnergies and PTTEP.
Inspections of offshore wind sites are typically manual and time intensive. However, by leveraging advanced AI, this technology can perform complex underwater tasks with no human intervention. Beam states this can significantly boost the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of underwater inspections and surveys.
This AI-driven way of working, reduces inspection timelines by up to 50%, improves inspection data quality and enables 3D reconstruction of assets alongside visual data.
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Beam CEO, Brian Allen stated: “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. Beam’s project has provided 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, added: “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.”
Beam will be rolling out this new technology across its fleet of DP2 vessels and underwater vehicles throughout 2025 and 2026.
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Originally published on powerengineeringint.com
