Bremenports GmbH & Co. KG is a consulting and engineering company that manages critical maritime ports Bremen and Bremerhaven in Europe, overseeing the inflow and outflow of containers, cars, bulk goods, and hazardous goods.
The company wished to understand the condition of submerged sheet piles at their port. However, these sheet piles were hard to inspect. Mounting a multibeam onto a vessel may not provide full coverage of the area, resulting in blind spots. In addition, time was of the essence to avoid interrupting any dispatch of ships, with high currents and murky waters proving a big challenge for any inspection job.
With these specific parameters, Bremenports wished to explore innovative inspection solutions that would be able to still provide a robust overview of data over their piles and surrounding environment.
Heeding the recommendation of Subsea Europe Services, BeeX’s European partner, on BeeX’s Hovering AUV’s diving maneuverability and capabilities in close inspections, BeeX was selected for a pilot deployment.
Measuring an approximate 1 square meter, the Hovering Autonomous Vehicle (AUV) A.IKANBILIS was the perfect fit for the mission. A.IKANBILIS was lowered into the inspection zone by a crane onboard a vessel from Bremenports and began its work.
Within a matter of time, the AUV A.IKANBILIS maneuvered itself to tight areas unreachable by a boat-mounted multibeam, Then, with its station-keeping capability, it performed a close visual inspection of the sheet piles for any structural defects.
Beyond that, the autonomous vehicle constructed a detailed 3D point cloud bathymetry of the surrounding seabed. The bathymetry enabled the identification of sedimentation build–up or debris, which could interfere with vessel operations near inspected piles.
For full documentation, visual snapshots of the pile and 3D visualisations of the seabed were directly uploaded to Sambal Portal, BeeX’s data reporting software, for the Bremenports’ records.
Though its size was diminutive, A.IKANBILIS was not a vehicle to be underestimated. A.IKANBILIS dove to tight and unexplored areas of along the port’s sheet piles and provided actionable data for Bremenports’ operations and maintenance team. Meanwhile, inspections were conducted without interrupting any ship dispatches, providing a seamless inspection solution to the busy port.
As the saying goes, “The best things come in small packages!”
