How USVs can Change the Offshore Inspection Market Through Novel Operating Models
Authors: de Winter J. 
Published: April 2024

Executive Summary

Uncrewed Surface vessels (USV) are becoming a widely accepted platform in the offshore industry for targeted, single-purpose applications, such as bathymetry or metocean data collection. Recently, multipurpose USVs have been introduced, effectively combining multiple data collection activities, such as seabed bathymetry along with the autonomous deployment of onboard remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) for subsea asset inspection. This new type of multipurpose USV offers significant operational benefits and facilitates different collaboration between asset owners and inspection service providers. This paper describes the societal and financial benefits of a new operational model where resident, multipurpose inspection USVs are deployed on continuous asset inspection tasks instead of the traditional project-based method using conventional inspection vessels. The USV solution presents numerous benefits. First, it contributes to the decarbonization of survey operations as they emit an order of magnitude less CO2 compared to conventional inspection vessels. Second, it reduces safety and environmental risk exposure by removing people from the offshore environment as well as reducing footprint, fuel load, and waste associated with a traditional inspection vessel. Third, USVs open the offshore industry to new groups of employees by allowing people who historically have not been able to live the offshore lifestyle to join through remote operation centers (ROCs). This has the potential to reduce the expected shortage of offshore personnel in the next decade.

Not to be overlooked is a fourth benefit, validated in this paper: a reduced cost per unit of data collected. In other words, USVs make it possible to collect more data per dollar spent. Compared to traditional crewed vessels, USVs can potentially collect between 14% and 38% more data because of reduced mobilization time, depending on the duration of the project.

To achieve this financial benefit, a novel operating model of USVs needs to be developed. Generally, the mobilization of conventional vessels has a significant impact on project costs, whereas USVs, operated remotely from one central location, have the potential to be resident in strategic locations and sail out when required to survey locations within the reach of one single voyage.

The new proposed model requires asset owners and inspection service providers to work together to optimize its benefits and facilitate its implementation. When committing to a resident USV, asset owners have the option to inspect and recalibrate their lifetime extension model continuously instead of once every number of years. At the same time, service providers have the option to reduce mobilization costs to a minimum by locating USVs in resident locations.

More data at higher frequencies is proven to improve the condition assessment, the basis of asset life extension programs. Therefore, having USVs in strategic resident locations, within reach of critical assets, can be a cost-effective method to increasing the data inspection frequency and therefore reducing the levelized cost of energy (LCOE).