TS4 4 Bingham Etal PDF

The Application of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Technology in
the Oil Industry – Vision and Experiences
David BINGHAM and Tony DRAKE, United Kingdom, Andrew HILL, USA and
Roger LOTT, United Kingdom
Key words: Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, AUV, Seabed Mapping, Swathe Bathymetry,
Sub-bottom Profiling.
ABSTRACT
BP has been contracting commercial services using a survey class AUV to collect sidescan
sonar, swathe bathymetry and sub-bottom profiler data at proposed oilfield development
locations in the US Gulf of Mexico and the UK sector of the North Sea. In the deep-water
Gulf of Mexico the surveys were conducted at proposed field facilities locations and along
proposed pipeline routes in water depths ranging from 500 to 2300 metres. In the North Sea
surveys were conducted on the continental shelf in water depths between 80 and 120 metres.
This paper will review the expectations we had of AUV technology before these surveys,
contrast these expectations with our experiences during the surveys, and indicate directions in
which we wish to see AUV technology develop.
CONTACT
David Bingham, Senior Surveyor

BP Exploration
Burnside Road, Dyce
Aberdeen, AB21 7PB
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel. + 44 1224 833460
Fax + 44 1224 832275
E-mail: [email protected]
Tony Drake, Senior Surveyor

BP Exploration
200 Chertsey Road, Sunbury on Thames
Middlesex, TW16 7LN
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel. + 44 1932 764555
Fax + 44 1932 764460
TS4.4 Hydrographic Surveying II 1/13

David Bingham, Tony Drake, Andrew Hill and Roger Lott
The Application of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Technology in the Oil Industry – Vision and
Experiences
FIG XXII International Congress

Washington, D.C. USA, April 19-26 2002
Andrew W. Hill, Geohazards Team Leader
BP Exploration
501 Westlake Park Blvd.
Houston
Texas, 77253-3092
USA
Tel. + 1 281 366 4020
Fax + 1 281 366 2915
Roger Lott, Head of Survey

BP Exploration
200 Chertsey Road
Sunbury on Thames
Middlesex, TW16 7LN
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel. + 44 1932 764365
Fax + 44 1932 764460
Web site: www.bp.com

Experiences

The Application of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Technology in
the Oil Industry – Vision and Experiences
David BINGHAM and Tony DRAKE, United Kingdom, Andrew HILL, USA and
Roger LOTT, United Kingdom
1. INTRODUCTION
The search for offshore hydrocarbons has taken the oil industry into increasingly deep water.
Over the past decade activities have gone beyond the continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico,
off Brazil, West Africa, north west Europe and the Mediterranean Sea. Oil is now being
produced from fields in 1000m water depth, with field developments in progress in double
these depths.
Traditional hydrographic survey technology has struggled to keep apace with these trends.
The water column between surface and seabed significantly degrades the resolution of data.
Deployment of sensors closer to the seabed requires an increasingly long tether. These long
umbilicals have made deep-water surveys less productive, with costs almost exponentially
proportional to the water depth. It became inceasingly obvious to us that applying the
traditional vessel-mounted and towed sensor techniques of the late 20th century required a
radical change in deeper water.
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are not new. They have been used for
oceanographic studies and for military purposes for several years. But, to we users of
commercial survey services, it seemed that most work had concentrated on the vehicles
themselves rather than on the use of such vehicles in surveying and site investigation. Never-
the-less, the deployment of AUV-bourne sensors appeared to have the potential to solve the
problems of accurately surveying deep-water sites.
In the late 1990’s BP surveyors and site investigation specialists vigourously persued the
technology and its application to oil industry requirements. In 2001 we conducted our first
commercial surveys using the technology. This paper outlines our experiences, contrasts them
against our previous expectations, and suggests future directions.
2. OUR VISION IN THE 1990’S
2.1 Our marine site survey requirements
Site surveys supporting offshore oil and gas facilities emplacement are intended to map all
features that may impact the proposed structures, with particular emphasis on natural or man-
made hazards on the seabed or in the subsurface. Surveys typically consist of bathymetry,
insonification through sidescan of the complete area of interest, very high resolution profiling
of the shallow subsurface and, for locations at which wells will be drilled, imaging of
Experiences

the subsurface through high resolution multi-channel reflection seismic techniques. Seabed
sampling and coring may also be required, to provide ground-truth to the seismic data. The
relative importance of these techniques varies from site to site depending upon geology and
proposed facility, but often the sum of the whole is greater than that of each of the parts and
careful integration of all data is required.
In deep water, traditional exploration seismic techniques will often provide imaging of the
shallow geology adequate for well design. Then the key sensors for site surveys are those
needed for production facilities foundation design, that is a very high resolution profiler (in
the frequency range 1 to 10 kHz), sidescan sonar and swathe bathymetry. Of course it is of
limited value to have data from these sensors without a clear understanding of its location, so
accurate navigation, both relative to a predefined plan and an absolute record of actual
location, is essential.
2.2 AUV Capabilities
Our review of AUV capabilities confirmed the potential of the technology in two areas:
- as a replacement for conventional ship-bourne hydrographic survey tasks.
- as a replacement for conventional tethered Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) tasks.
We recognised two significant limiting factors. Firstly, batteries. Limitations in battery power
restricted either endurance or the sensors that the vehicle could carry. Secondly, vehicle
navigation and control. Whilst all of the navigation components, in particular inertial systems,
were available and all of the sensors were in existance, they had not been integrated into a
commercial autonomous vehicle before. But with existing technology the concept of a
”survey-class” AUV seemed feasible. Together with our technical colleagues in a sister oil
company, we drafted and promulgated within the industry an outline specification of
requirements – see Appendix A.
3. EXPERIENCES
BP does not own or operate AUVs. But we now have many months of practical use. We have
seen two systems:
- the Hugin 3000 AUV built by Kongsberg Simrad of Norway and owned and operated
by C&C Technologies, a survey company based in Lousiana, USA. BP used this
system for several months in the Gulf of Mexico in water depths to 2300m.
- the Maridian 600 AUV, built by Maridan a/s of Denmark and owned and operated by
De Beers of South Africa. This system was operated in the central North Sea in
conjunction with Gardline Surveys of the UK, in water depths between 80 and 120m.
Both of these systems carry swathe bathymetry, sidescan sonar and chirp profiler as payload
sensors.

Experiences

3.1 Key findings
To end-users the vehicle is a means to an end; it is the data collected which is of primary
interest to us. The key learning from both of the systems we have used is the significant
improvement in data quality. We anticipated this in deep water, especially in contrast to
surface-mounted sensors. But the Hugin 3000 AUV is delivering better quality data than we
have seen from deep-tow systems using similar sensor suites over the same area. And we see
improvements in data quality in shallow water too, from the Maridan system. We attribute
this to the improved stability that the AUV platform provides, to the co-location of the
sensors (thereby removing relative positioning problems) and to the repeatability of the
navigational capability. The latter allows improved line to line positioning and better
mosaicing of seabed imagery. In our 1999 requirements statement, written at a time when
crude oil prices in real terms were at a thirty-year low, we emphasised the need for cost
savings. These are of course always welcome, but we are now more focused on the vastly-
improved data quality. The justification for accepting no cost decrease is the ability to see
features that may be significant to our understanding of the potential hazards in the area that
we would otherwise not be able to see, thereby providing detail for improved design and
installation of facilities. There is no turning back.
This superb data was not delivered without teething problems. These AUV’s are complex
beasts, with a dozen acoustic systems having to work in close proximity without inteference.
Safety is of great concern to BP. Both the C&C and De Beers launch and recovery systems
and processes are well thought out and safe. But for recovery both rely on grappling for a rope
released by the AUV. Sea state is the limiting factor for launch and especially recovery. The
challenge for all AUV operations in North West Europe is to allow safe launch and recovery
in up to 6-metre seas at any time of day or night. And for the De Beers vehicle, the
unwillingness to recover in darkness is a severe impediment to its usage by the offshore oil
industry.
The interplay of launch and recovery capabilities with vehicle endurance will be a crucial
factor in the commercial sucess of AUV systems. The longer the mission endurance, the less
frequent the dependency on a weather window for launch or recovery. Conversely, the more
frequent the need for AUV handling operations, the more weather sensitive the system will
be. And a greater proportion of time will be taken with unproductive descent and ascent.
The 4.5-hour endurance of the De Beers Maridan vehicle is a serious problem for oil industry
operations. In contrast, over a 6-month period in the Gulf of Mexico with the C&C Hugin
3000 system we were averaging dives of just under 40 hours.

Experiences

3.2 AUV Autonomy
The Hugin 3000 system as currently used by C&C strictly is not autonomous, but untethered.
That is, untethered in the physical sense: there remains an acoustic tether (actually, with this
system, multiple acoustic tethers). There are advantages and disadvantages to this. Without
the ability to receive external navigation from a seabed transponder or transponder array,
Hugin 3000 is dependent upon positioning input from a vessel-mounted ultra-short baseline
positioning system (USBL) to limit inertial navigation system drift to within acceptable
margins. A mother vessel to provide this input is therefore required. But the presence of the
mother vessel allows for continuous monitoring of AUV control and payload systems. This
provides assurance that the system will return with adequate data, and in the C&C/Hugin case
provides for more than a minimum of quality control information allowing for provisional
data interpretation and mission replanning.
The disadvantage of this tight acoustic tether is that it demands a dedicated vessel to support.
There is a cost associated with that. In contrast to the Hugin operations, once the Maridan
system had been deployed, its mother vessel was able to carry out vibrocoring operations until
the AUV required revictalling. The Maridan system does have an acoustic link to verify that
sensor are on or off, but this does not provide any assurance that adequate data is being
acquired.
The way forward is to build flexibility into the AUV control systems, to allow autonomous
operations but also to have control and real-time quality control capabilities when required.
For the Hugin system, this will require improvements to the AUV navigation system to
remove its dependence upon USBL input. For the Maridan system, significantly greater
mission endurance is a must. For both, the launch and recovery weather window must be
extended.
4. THE FUTURE
The first commercial AUV systems applied to surveying are with us now. Other vehicles and
their similar payloads are on the way. These systems can all follow pre-programmed
missions, and have a (largely untested) collision avoidance capability. Their payloads are
bathymetry, sidescan sonar and profiler. They make ideal foundation geophysics packages.
However they do not address other areas of oil industry requirements where, with further
development, there is potential for the AUV technology to be applied. Other potential
applications include:
- environmental inspection
- engineering inspection.
- underwater engineering intervention.
Inspection is undertaken using sonar, photography and physical measurement. Intervention
currently uses tethered remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) for valve manipulation,
component replacement, etc.
Experiences

4.1 Inspection AUV
An industry need is the ability take photography for confirming seabed features - important
for environmental assessment of an area. If we find areas that may contain deepwater corals,
brine lakes or natural seeps we would like to take a look at them without having to bring in
another vessel with an ROV.
The industry also requires the ability to inspect submarine pipelines and cables. If the position
of these are accurately known, then, within the navigation limits of today’s survey AUV’s,
sonar inspection is possible. In the general sense, today’s navigation capabilities are not good
enough. The collision avoidance systems remain untested for deployment adjacent to seabed
hardware. Our current knowledge of facilities locations is not to the sub-metre level required
for inspection. And AUV positioning has yet to reach these accuracy levels. We believe that
the way forward is to have real-time automated interpretation of the payload sensors such that
they can interpret the position of the vehicle relative to the facility, and for there to be a real-
time feedback of this to the vehicle navigation system so that the vehicle is placed in the
optimal position for further sensing.
4.2 Hybrid AUV-ROV
The maintenance engineering potential of AUV technology is beyond the scope of detailed
analysis in this paper, but worthy of a brief mention, if only because the potential savings to
one operator alone have been calculated at $50 million per year. ROV umbilicals have the
same disadvantages as deep-tow survey systems – limited in excursion, prone to
entanglement except in open locations and a physical drag in the water column limiting
productivity. But for engineering applications they bring important advantages. Power can be
supplied from the surface and is not a limiting factor. So, with appropriate manipulators on
the vehicle, intervention with subsea hardware is possible.
Increasingly the oil industry is moving towards limiting the number of production platforms
installed, and instead using technical advances that allow for seabed wellheads to be tied back
to a central connection. See the figure below for a schematic diagram.
The concept of a hybid AUV-ROV would be ideal in these circumstances. A free-swimming

AUV could be housed at the central production facility and despatched to any of the distant
seabed production facilities when required. There it would latch with a docking station
containing a reeled control umbilical which would have connections back to the control
centre built into the seabed facilities. It can then operate as an ROV, with all of the
advantages that entails.

Experiences

Bullwinkle
Platform (80 MBPD)
Troika
Subsea Manifold
• 2670' WD
Insulated
• Expandable
Flowlines
• Eight Well Capacity
2 x 10”
• Piggable
E&H Control
~14
Umbilicals
4.3 Engineering class AUV
When there has been a quantum leap in power technology and ROVs can become self-
sufficient in this respect, the intervention-class AUV will have arrived. To us this remains a
distant prospect, but more possible than appeared to be the case five years ago.
5. CONCLUSION
Survey class AUVs are emerging technology, but with us today. They are delivering a limited
but important suite of data of tremendous quality. We expect to see their capabilities
increased in the very near future through the real-time integration of sensor interpretation with
the vehicle control system, bringing a pipe and cable inspection capability. Hybrid AUV-
ROVs are coming. An autonomous intervention is a possibility. All these capabilities support
the business need of the offshore oil industry.

Experiences

APPENDIX A
Survey AUV – Oil Industry Requirements
A.1. The following outline specification for a survey Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
(AUV) has been prepared by BP and Shell to encourage development of ‘industry standard’
vehicles. Appropriate specifications are required to encourage ‘fit for purpose’ survey AUVs.
Over specification of AUVs may delay their introduction, hamper their transportability and
delay acceptance by the oil industry, as it will add to the AUV cost and delay their
development. However these ‘fit for purpose’ vehicles should preferably be capable of later
expansion of specification.
AUVs should be considered for suitable survey operations in all water depths, ranging from
nearshore and shelf (possibly a large market) to deep ocean (a more limited market).
It is likely that there will be uses for minimum payload survey AUVs, as well as more flexible
AUVs capable of later expansion.
Survey AUV requirements are listed below, divided into essential and preferred requirements.
A.2 Cost Reduction

It is expected that survey AUVs will significantly reduce engineering/installation costs by
provision of very high quality survey data. However, for the industry to readily adopt these
vehicles, survey AUVs must reduce survey costs compared to conventional surveys (or be at
least comparable). To encourage rapid development, the industry should aim to significantly
reduce survey costs by the use of survey AUVs. To ensure significant cost reductions, the
following are required: -
- Highly efficient operations (rapid line turns, fast survey speed, limited weather
dependence).
- High reliability.
- ‘Fit for purpose’ vehicles - not over specified for the task but capable of scope
expansion.
- Capable of safe operation (including launch/recovery) in sea states of greater than 2
metres.
- Preferably capable of safe operation (including launch/recovery) in extreme sea states.
- Endurance of at least 24 hours, preferably 48 hours.
- Capable of deployment and recovery from low cost support vessels.
- Low recharge time or multiple AUVs (one operating, one recharging).
A.3. Support Vessel

The type of support vessel will dictate survey costs. Waiting for full AUV autonomy may
delay introduction of Survey AUVs. Although full autonomy is desirable in the longer term,
at present it is likely that a support vessel will be required to support and partly (or fully)
Experiences

position the AUV.
- Support of the AUV must be possible from vessels of opportunity

- Vessel may undertake simultaneous operations (e.g. multi-channel high resolution
seismic or shallow gas surveys).
- It is preferred that multiple AUVs operate from a single support vessel. This will
require a level of autonomy by the AUV.
- Safe onboard battery storage and charging arrangements.
A.4. Survey Speed

- A preferred cruising speed of at least 4 knots.
- Navigation and maneuvering control between speed ranges of 2-6 knots
- Preferably capable of maintaining survey speed in high current environments (up to 3
knots).
A.5. Flexible launch/recovery

Launch and recovery of the vehicle should be carefully considered, as it will impact upon
both cost of the operations and safety aspects of AUV operations.
- Capable of launch/recovery in sea states of greater than 2 metres.

- Preferably capable of launch/recovery in extreme sea states.
- Capable of launch/recovery from a variety of support vessels.
- Preferably capable of launch/recovery from a moving vessel.
- Minimal human intervention for launch and recovery for reasons of safety.
A.6. Depth Capability

Survey AUV depth requirements will depend upon international survey portfolios. Careful
analysis is required of AUV costs for various water depths compared to this portfolio. It is
suggested that a survey AUV that can operate in water depths of up to 3000 metres should be
adequate for most oil industry applications in the medium term. However, there will also be
applications for AUVs in shallower and deeper waters. It is likely that cheaper AUVs for
operations in shallower waters will create their own niche markets.
A.7. Air Transportable

- For international acceptance, the AUV package should be air transportable including
batteries.
A.8. Payload
- Sub-bottom profiler – preferably optional seismic sources for different geology.

- Side Scan Sonar – 100 and 500 kHz options.
- Bathymetry – Preferably Swathe echo sounder.
- Temperature/salinity or conductivity measurement.
Experiences

- Precise depth sensor.
- Collision avoidance system.
- Heading, pitch, roll, yaw sensors.
- Navigation – see below.
- Preferably, RDI Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler
- Preferably capability to install additional payload sensors.
A.9. Navigation
3D Navigation of the AUV is required. Survey AUV navigation requirements are: -
- Mission programming to follow a pre-determined survey grid loaded to the AUV.

- Mission positioning accuracy of 10 to 40 metres.
- Data positioning accuracy of 5 to 20 metres.
- Capable of utilising position updates from acoustic positioning e.g. USBL or LBL
systems transmitted from the support vessel, seabed beacons or some other source.
- Preferably capable of utilising position updates from GPS when on the sea surface.
- Doppler velocity log capable of operations over a variety of seabed soils.
- Dead reckoning during short periods of loss of navigation data.
- Collision avoidance logic.
A.10. Flying Height
- Survey AUVs must be capable of operating at a variety of flying heights above the
seabed.
- The minimum flying height will be controlled by requirements of the 500 kHz side
scan sonar.
- Capable of maintaining a fixed survey altitude over a rugged seabed terrain or
maintaining a constant depth as the terrain changes.
A.11. Data Supervision and Quality Control
To ensure integrity of acquired data and mission alteration.
- Variations to the AUV mission shall be possible from the support vessel.
- As a minimum, the survey AUV shall be capable of self-checking and cessation of
operations if systems are non operational.
- The AUV shall preferably transmit status flags to the support vessel. Sub-sampled raw
data is the preferred status flag.
- To ensure data integrity, it is preferred that a significant amount of sub-sampled raw
data is transmitted to the support vessel.
A.12 Data Logging/Storage
- Compatible with the endurance of the Survey AUV when operating all survey sensors
at their maximum sample rate.
Experiences

- Data logging frequency compatible with the survey sensor.
A.13. Time Synchronisation
- All sensors including navigation shall be precisely time synchronised at all times.
A.14. Integrated Packages
- Payload sensors shall not interfere.

- Simultaneous operation of multiple Survey AUVs is preferred.
- AUVs shall be capable of operations in environments with acoustic noise (coherent or
random).
A.15. ‘Nice to Have’ (not essential)
- Capability to add additional sensors.

- Visual capability (video/stills).
- Magnetometer.
- Hydrophone for use with other acoustic sources.
- Capability to dock into a ‘garage’ and download data/recharge.

Experiences

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
David Bingham
Dave has a BSc in surveying from University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. After working as
a hydrographic surveyor for Decca Survey and Sonarmarine, be joined BP in 1980. He has
been involved with offshore survey and positioning activies in the Far East and North West
Europe.
Tony Drake
Tony joined BP's Survey and Cartographic department in 1977 after graduating from the
University of Nottingham with a degree in civil engineering. He has been involved in onshore
and offshore survey and positioning activities in support of exploration and development
projects that have been undertaken in many countries around the world
Andrew Hill
Has a BSc in Maritime Studies and an M.Sc in Marine Geology and Geophysics. After
leaving university in 1982 he joined Geoteam UK Ltd in Aberdeen, subsequently moving to
A/S Geoteam in Oslo, Norway in 1984. He joined BP in 1988 as the High Resolution
Geophysics specialist. He is now BP's Survey and Site Investigation Global Network Leader.
Andy is a member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Joint Chair of the Gulf of
Mexico Geohazards Forum and a member of the Society of Underwater Technology's
Offshore Site Investigation Committee. He has written and presented numerous papers on
various aspects of hydrographic and geophysical site investigation in Europe and America.
Roger Lott
After graduating from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, with a degree in
Geography and Surveying and working as a land surveyor in Jamaica, Roger joined BP in
1973. He is a Fellow of the RICS and of the Royal Geographical Society, member of the
Hydrographic Society and Institute of Navigation. He is a past Chairman of the FIG-IHO
Advisory Board for Hydrographic Surveying, Chairman of the European Petroleum Survey
Group geodesy committee and a member of FIG Working Group 5.5, Reference Frames in
Practice.
In 2000 the authors were awarded a BP Innovation Award for the introduction of Survey
AUV Technology to the industry.

Experiences


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The Application of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Technology in

the Oil Industry – Vision and Experiences

David Bingham, Senior Surveyor

Tony Drake, Senior Surveyor

TS4.4 Hydrographic Surveying II 1/13

FIG XXII International Congress

Roger Lott, Head of Survey

Web site: www.bp.com

TS4.4 Hydrographic Surveying II 2/13

FIG XXII International Congress

2. OUR VISION IN THE 1990’S

2.1 Our marine site survey requirements

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2.2 AUV Capabilities

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4.2 Hybrid AUV-ROV

The concept of a hybid AUV-ROV would be ideal in these circumstances. A free-swimming

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4.3 Engineering class AUV

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Survey AUV – Oil Industry Requirements

A.2 Cost Reduction

A.3. Support Vessel

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- Support of the AUV must be possible from vessels of opportunity

A.4. Survey Speed

A.5. Flexible launch/recovery

- Capable of launch/recovery in sea states of greater than 2 metres.

A.6. Depth Capability

A.7. Air Transportable

- Sub-bottom profiler – preferably optional seismic sources for different geology.

FIG XXII International Congress

3D Navigation of the AUV is required. Survey AUV navigation requirements are: -

- Mission programming to follow a pre-determined survey grid loaded to the AUV.

A.10. Flying Height

A.11. Data Supervision and Quality Control

To ensure integrity of acquired data and mission alteration.

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A.13. Time Synchronisation

A.14. Integrated Packages

- Payload sensors shall not interfere.

A.15. ‘Nice to Have’ (not essential)

- Capability to add additional sensors.

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