Marine intelligent detective submersible accomplished med-term test successfully leading national AUV in deep ocean engineering application

Reporters recently learned that, state key laboratory at Harbin Engineering University devoted to underwater robotic technology has developed marine intelligent detective submersible (2000 m AUV), which successfully accomplished its 11-day sea trials in the South China Sea. The trials include 2000-metre submerging, autonomous exploration for ocean oil pipes, surface characteristic measurement of the bottom sea, topography detection on seafloor and profiling observation in shallow layer etc. This is the first time that domestic AUV as a model applying in ocean engineering.

In recent years, with ocean oil and gas industry develop, especially for deepwater oil project, there is an increasingly demand of ocean investigation, seafloor exploration and submarine pipe line measurement. It is not only cost high for traditional deep towing system or ROV system bring by the mother ship to proceed the above test, but also with low accuracy and efficiency. The most efficient, economical and quick way to detect deep water is using marine intelligent detective submersible, which has already been an important tendency for international marine oil industry, and is especially applicable to observe, record statistics of sound and videos for bottom ocean oil pipes. In addition, the submersible is able to determine geodetic coordinates of the oil pipes by the water sound location.

It is the mid-term ocean trials of marine intelligent detective submersible engineering of MIIT’s high-tech marine project that is undertaken by Harbin Engineering University and Shenzhen Ocean Oil Engineering Underwater Technology Co., Ltd. With a team of nine researchers led by Pang Yongjie, the professor of state key laboratory devoted to underwater robotic technology at Harbin Engineering University, they cooperate with the company and overcome severe conditions of the South China Sea to finish these trials together. Shenzhen Ocean Oil Engineering Underwater Technology Co., Ltd take the country’s most advanced engineering marine ‘Ocean Oil 289’ to assist the trails. Some hard tasks are finished in the tests: AUV cloth recycling in the complex ocean environment; high fixed tracking autonomous navigation in 300-meter-depth water and autonomous measurement of the ocean topography; underwater working ability and acoustic communication for independent 2000-meters-depth limitation; ultra short baseline and real-time information interaction with mother ship etc. Autonomous ocean detective device will be provided by the project for ocean engineering, especially for pre-investigation, construction monitoring and post-maintenance monitoring etc.