Uncrewed Systems Technology 047 l Aergility ATLIS l AI focus l Clevon 1 UGV l Geospatial insight l Intergeo 2022 report l AUSA 2022 report I Infinity fuel cell l BeeX A.IKANBILIS l Propellers focus I Phoenix Wings Orca

92 In operation | BeeX A.IKANBILIS That enables it to hold its vertical and horizontal position much like an ROV, or like a couple of other AUVs with similar propulsion configurations (see Hydromea Vertex dossier, UST 16, October/ November 2017, and Marin mAUV digest, UST 32, June/July 2020, for example). Having so many motors will consume a lot of energy in strong currents, but the end result is that the vehicle stays stable and continues to gather high-resolution data, and consumes less energy than a tethered ROV. The autonomy is powered by an Intel CPU and an Nvidia GPU. These carry the algorithms for processing data from a frontal HD camera and Blueprint Subsea Oculus 3D imaging sonar (although different sensors can be integrated depending on the mission, environment and customer). That makes the A.IKANBILIS one of very few AUVs in the world to run a CPU and GPU in parallel in real time. “We are partners in Nvidia’s Inception programme aimed at AI start-ups,” Chia adds. “We leverage the support from that programme to ensure we’re deploying their latest technology in our vehicles.” As with many self-driving cars, the AI inherent in BeeX’s adaptive autonomy has been developed using deep neural networks through the use of copious image data, but as Chia notes, underwater image databases are far harder to come by than those of, say, roads and traffic. “This capability of ours has therefore come through us thinking carefully about how to leverage the best of self- driving car algorithms, and then building our application-specific hardware and software around that middle layer,” she says. “Over the years, at university and after, we iterated different hardware products to find the package of elements that best gel together for the kind of AUV that works well for our customers.” In the North Sea Nordsee One and Northland Power’s other wind farms are serviced via a crew transfer vessel (CTV) and service operations vessel respectively. The CTV was therefore used to carry the Northland Power and BeeX technicians, and the A.IKANBILIS HAUV, to Nordsee One, specifically to the turbine where the HAUV was to be deployed to prove its capabilities. (Schmoekel explains that the turbines “all look the same”, so a single turbine was sufficient as a test case.) “That’s an important point – we wanted to first show that existing CTVs and infrastructure in general were sufficient to transport everything necessary for our HAUV, so that buying our vehicle or renting our service could easily fit within existing operating procedures and equipment,” Chia says. “No-one should have to order in a whole new vessel just to use autonomous vehicles, no matter what the savings in their running costs brings.” Once there, a crane on the turbine was used to lift the HAUV up from the CTV deck and onto the transition piece, a deck that sits around the middle of the wind turbine. That is difficult with work- class ROVs, which are often made larger and heavier to help them mitigate the effects of currents. “From there, we activated the vehicle, lowered it into the water via a tether, and it then started to use its camera and sensors to build up a map around itself for navigation and localisation, so that the mission could begin,” Chia notes. She adds that the tether was used purely as a recovery tool of last resort, simply to make sure the HAUV would not be lost owing to unforeseen circumstances, as the company has yet to complete development of a launch and recovery system. Being much thinner than power cables, its smaller footprint meant it underwent far reduced dragging and pulling than an ROV. As well as the HD camera and imaging sonar, three other inspection sensors can be added on a plug- and-play basis, Chia’s team having observed that complex sensor integration processes take up inordinate amounts of preparation time in HAUV missions. While the arrival and launch phases were straightforward, it belies the extensive preparation BeeX performed in-house to achieve the necessary intelligence specific to wind farm pile inspections. This required considerable r&d by the company on how the vehicle would move underwater in response to different forces. December/January 2023 | Uncrewed Systems Technology The HAUV being hauled onto a wind turbine’s transition piece deck using a crane (which work-class ROVs are largely too heavy for), before being activated and lowered into the water