Kongsberg Maritime: AUVs For All Applications

www.km.kongsberg.com

Kongsberg Maritime’s Marine Robotics (MARO) team is the driving force behind the most extensive portfolio of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) technology in the world. The company’s HUGIN AUVs have forged a path for the acceptance of this advanced technology as a viable, optimal survey and inspection platform since 1993, while the MUNIN AUV offers the same advantages, but in a more compact platform.

HUGIN is KONGSBERG’s original AUV and through constant development is still recognised as a state-ofthe- art, highly reliable and effective platform. Combining IHO-quality positioning with low noise and the highest resolution survey sensors available, HUGIN is the most complete platform for seabed mapping, pipeline inspection, and mine countermeasures. Capable of operating at depths to 6,000 m with mission durations of more than 75 hours, HUGIN’s size and flexible configuration options enable it to collect data from diverse sensors, resulting in a complete data set from a single mission.

HUGIN can operate at depths to 6,000 m for over 75 hours at a time.

Launched in 2013, MUNIN is capable of missions of up to 24 hours in water as deep as 1,500 m. Measuring between 3 and 4 m in length with a 34-cm diameter, the 600-m rated MUNIN weighs less than 300 kg, making it one of the most compact and yet highly capable commercial AUVs available today. It features a modular construction, enabling operators to mobilize the system quickly without the need for calibration. It is also compatible with KONGSBERG’s pipe tracking software, using the sidescan sonar to autonomously track alongside a pipe.

While HUGIN, MUNIN, and Kongsberg Hydroid’s Remus AUVs continue to be the first choice in the offshore, research, and naval sectors, the MARO team has diversified KONGSBERG’s AUV offering in recent years, most notably through the Kongsberg Seaglider platform and a collaboration with NTNU and Statoil to develop the unique Eelume solution.

Seaglider is an autonomous underwater glider developed for continuous, long-term measurement of oceanographic parameters. Rather than an electrically driven propeller, the vehicle uses small changes in buoyancy and wings to achieve forward motion. The system’s pitch and roll are controlled by moving the battery mass inside the vehicle.

Eelume features a flexible, modular design that introduces new possibilities underwater.

Eelume is a radical re-imagining of the accepted AUV standards. Featuring a ground-breaking, futuristic design based on a unique flexible and adaptable body, Eelume is designed to live permanently underwater and carry out underwater inspection and intervention tasks that would normally require the mobilisation of expensive ships for divers or the launch and retrieval of other ROVs.

In addition to its superior manoeuvrability, Eelume is a highly stable sensor and actuator platform offering unmatched access to confined areas inside subsea structures enabling diverse operations. The Eelume solution will dramatically reduce costs and the environmental impact associated with having a ship overhead as is normal for traditional underwater intervention operations. It can be installed on both existing and new fields where typical jobs include visual inspection, cleaning, and operating valves and chokes. These tasks account for a large part of the total subsea inspection and intervention spend.

Eelume represents a radical diversion from the standard approach to developing AUVs, ROVs, and other marine robots. It will deliver significant new capabilities when it becomes commercially available in 2018. While Eelume brings a new approach, as a leading AUV developer Kongsberg Maritime continues to offer the largest, most advanced portfolio of tried and tested AUV platforms for all applications.