Autonomous and remote-operated drones and robots are being used from the stars to the sea floor. They’re being deployed to inspect, collect data on, and even repair offshore energy assets around the world. 

Last week, a couple of major advancements were made:

• Petronas, an energy company from Malaysia, is testing autonomous robotic inspection on its oil and gas platforms.

• Elwave, an electric sensing technology company from France, raised funds to commercialize its technology for underwater vehicles, drones, and robotics.

These deployments are already proving their worth with decreased safety risks and improved efficiency.

ANYmal Goes Off Leash 

Petronas is testing ANYmal for autonomous robotic inspection on its oil and gas platforms in Malaysia.

The four-legged dog-like robot by ANYbotics is designed to perform autonomous inspections in dangerous and hazardous locations, including oil and gas platforms.

Together, Petronas and ANYbotics developed an Ex-certified version of the robot, which means it’s certified to work in environments with a high risk for explosions—like offshore rigs.

Oil and gas facilities require continuous monitoring and frequent inspections to ensure high availability and safety. ANYmal provides automated routine inspections, including general visual inspection, digital readouts of analog and digital gauges, thermography, and acoustic analysis of rotating equipment. 

Like Spot from Boston Dynamics, ANYmal can climb stairs and perform monitoring based on instructions. It can operate for two hours before it needs to be charged, which happens automatically in a special dock.

Fauzy Omar Basheer Othman of Petronas said, “Our motivation is to deploy robotic solutions to reduce HSE risks and OPEX by minimizing offshore workforce deployment and logistics.”

Do the Elwave

Elwave—formed in 2018 to commercialize technology developed by the Biorobotic Laboratory of Institut Mines-Télécom Atlantique—raised funds to commercialize its electric sensing technology. The funding round was led by Sofimac Innovation with co-investors Litto Invest Fund and Atlantique Vendée Innovation Fund.

Elwave’s electric sense technology is an electromagnetic perception mode that provides a real-time 360° perception for underwater and industrial robots. It allows unmanned robots—operated autonomously or remotely—to detect, locate, and characterize objects.

The sensing technology is under review for tracking buried objects in underwater sediments such as cables and pipelines. Initial operational targets are shallow water applications like offshore wind cable inspection and remote or autonomous vehicle navigation.

Currently Elwave is working on solutions with Total, Saipem, Subsea 7, iXblue, Naval Group, and others for implementation on their underwater vehicles.

Automating Offshore

More and more robotic and autonomous technologies are being deployed in harsh oil and gas and energy environments. These advancements are helping producers go above (and below) and beyond for safety and efficiency.