Towards Inspection of Marine Energy Devices Using ROVs: Floating Wind Turbine Motion Replication

摘要

Inspection, repair, and maintenance operations are of crucial importance for the safety and survival of marine renewable energy devices. Current ROV manipulator technology used for subsea operations in offshore oil and gas industry is not adequate for offshore renewables. Target devices for inspection and monitoring operations in oil and gas are close to static, unlike their marine energy counterparts which are in motion due to a highly dynamic environment in which they operate. In this paper we describe motion analysis methods for marine energy devices implemented on the OC3-Hywind floating wind turbine in order to understand the conditions in which inspection and intervention operations are to be performed. Additionally, we present experiments carried out on a laboratory rig which is able to replicate the motion of the OC3-Hywind floating platform, and which will be used in future research on control systems for automated visual inspection and intervention using ROV manipulators.