Kraken Robotics Inc. has entered a partnership with Avitas Systems, a General Electric Venture, to advance robotic inspections for the oil and gas, offshore renewable energy and shipping industries, according to a news release.

Avita Systems will integrate AUVs, acoustic and laser sensor technology and artificial intelligence-based navigation software into an autonomous subsea inspection system. The partnership expands capabilities for inspections of ship and FPSO hulls, underwater production fields, subsea pipelines, cables and offshore wind farm assets.

Kraken’s SeaVision sensor, which can flexibly attach to AUVs and ROVs, combines laser scanning and optical imaging to provide data for inspectors and operators. The sensor’s colorized laser imagery detects and characterizes corrosion, cracks, marine growth and other defects.

SeaVision’s laser scanning process can be repeated thousands of times per second to generate coordinate values for millions of points on a surface. These points then become 3-D models of subsea infrastructure.

Avitas Systems will also use sonar technology and navigational software from Kraken to optimize robots’ abilities to follow supervisory commands, track pipeline or subsea field positioning with AI-powered swim paths and identify priority areas for inspection. Kraken’s AquaPix synthetic aperture sonar technology will specifically enable 3-D volumetric imaging.

The high-resolution images of assets’ surface contours can be inputted into the Avitas Systems cloud-based platform, where advanced algorithms fuse multiple sensor data, perform image analytics and predict actionable outcomes in real time. The Avitas Systems platform can centralize and prioritize the inspection data by areas of interest to inspectors, which will increase efficiency, the company said.

“Integrating our technologies with Avitas Systems will significantly enhance subsea asset management and provide improved safety, reduced costs and actionable intelligence for operators.” Karl Kenny, Kraken’s president and CEO said. “We look forward to announcing our first contract during fourth-quarter 2017.”

—Staff Reports

Offshore