Application of Fieldbus Technology to Enable Enhanced Actuator Control of Automated Inspection for Offshore Structures

Abstract

Due to extreme environmental loadings and aging conditions, maintaining structural integrity for offshore structures is critical to their safety. Non-destructive testing of risers plays a key role in identifying defects developing within the structure, allowing repair in a timely manner to mitigate against failures which cause damage to the environment and pose a hazard to human operators. However, in order to be cost effective the inspection must be carried out in situ, and this poses significant safety risks if undertaken manually. Therefore, enabled by advancements in automation and communication technologies, efforts are being made to deploy inspection systems using robotic platforms. This paper proposes a distributed networked communication system to meet the control requirements of a precision rotary scanner for inspection of underwater structures aimed at providing a robotic inspection system for structural integrity in an offshore environment. The system is configured around local control units, a fieldbus network, and a supervisory control system accounting for the environment conditions to provide enhanced control of actuators for automated inspection of offshore structures.