Design of an Autonomous ROV for Marine Growth Inspection and Cleaning

Abstract

Marine growth affects offshore structures, causing additional weight and roughened surfaces, increasing wave load. In order to reduce these issues, regular inspection and cleaning can be carried out using various methods, of which one is Remotely Operated Vehicle-based (ROV) operations. In the work presented here, the design of a task-specific ROV for marine-growth cleaning is described, which is differentiated from the normal general-purpose ROVs currently used for this purpose by specialized construction and the use of a simple yet flexible framework. Compared to existing solutions, the proposed framework requires limited low-level programming, which heavily simplifies the implementation and thus reduces the associated practical overhead. The presented ROV prototype design has been demonstrated in a test tank facility and will be validated in an offshore scenario in a future offshore campaign.