Test Center

The ATLANTIS Test Center infrastructure consist of

  • The Coastal Testbed has a shore control room and a Floating Structure System (FSS), and will be used by technology developers to de-risk their robotic technologies through rigorous, cost-efficient, and staged testing programmes performed in near-real environments for a wide technical and industrial impact.
  • The Offshore Testbed encompasses dedicated positions within a commercial wind farm, the WindFloat Atlantic (WFA), that will be reserved for demonstrating robotic technologies.

The ATLANTIS project will introduce 4 showcases whose scenarios will be defined by end-users for characterizing key areas for the value chain for offshore wind O&M where robotics will introduce a major contribution.

Scenario overview1. Showcase – Turbine inspection and maintenance

Scenario 1: Inspection of blades and tower.

This scenario demonstrates the possibilities of using UAV:s and ASV:s for Inspection and Maintenance of floating windmill tower and blades. See the video.

Scenario 2: Inspection, maintenance and repair (IMR) of the transition piece or the floating structure.

This scenario will be used to demonstrate the IMR capabilities of ROVs, AUVs or ASVs. See the video.

2. Showcase – Export cable and Array cable maintenance

Scenario 3: Repair of underwater floating wind turbine cables protection systems.

This scenario will be used to demonstrate ROVs and AUVs with inspection and intervention capabilities (e.g., manipulation).

Scenario 4: Underwater monitoring over extended time periods.

This scenario will be used to demonstrate AUVs and ASVs with long endurance capabilities. also use of underwater charging station.

3. Showcase – Foundation and Scour protection

Scenario 5: Underwater close-range inspection of foundations.

This scenario will be used to demonstrate AUVs and ROVs with close-range navigation capabilities.

Scenario 6: Underwater monitoring of scour protection interventions.

Scour is erosion caused by the presence of a structure changing flow patterns and increasing sediment transport locally around the structure. Scour is therefore an important factor for all foundation types. If sea bed material around the foundation is removed by the action of scour then14: routine monitoring is required in either scenario to monitor the scour depth development or the effectiveness of scour protection to avoid the risk of movement to the foundations structures.

This scenario will be used to demonstrate AUV with high-level of autonomy and ROVs. See the video.

4. Showcase – Offshore logistics

The unmet needs, barriers and enablers: weather forecasts are needed for short-term planning of offshore activities and the closer the forecast is to the activity, the more reliable it gets. Metocean data recordings are used to provide real time data to support offshore activity, to verify forecast tools and to resolve disputes regarding weather downtime.

Scenario 7: O&M operations supported by crewless vessels.

Automated technologies and reduced crew on board for some manoeuvres, particularly short distances, and the desire to innovate will continue to appear. Operating wind farms on a vessel-less basis require new business strategies that should start emerging in a near future and that are fully supported with technology developments from the robotics industry.

This scenario will be used to demonstrate ASV with capability to transport, deploy and recover robotic assets in real-environment. See the video.

Scenario 8: Optimization of robotic-based operations.

As offshore wind farms move further out to sea, demands made on supporting vessels are changing significantly to reduce the number of operators on board. Further challenge to optimize the operation, comes from the energy perspective and considering the propulsion usage during dynamic positioning, fitting the O&M capabilities provided by the robotic units to daily operations, and including an optimization of the equipment to use at which time. See the video.

Atlantis Test Center