d’ROP Survey Platform Launched
Developed by UK-based Osiris Projects, the dynamic Remotely Operated Survey Platform (d’ROP) has the potential to revolutionise survey productivity in shallow water tracking and inspection applications. In recent years, with the expansion of offshore wind and cable interconnectors, there has been a significant increase in the requirements for cable depth of burial surveying in coastal areas, where compact ROVs struggle with the environmental conditions and where work-class ROVs add significant expense.
The idea behind the d’ROP is simple; to provide a compact, stable platform for remote survey in dynamic coastal environments. Osiris Projects managing director Andy McLeay explains saying that the system is effectively a compact high powered work class ROV platform but with all the expensive and complicated bits that aren’t needed for survey tasks stripped off: no vertical thrusters, simplified ‘hands-off’ deployment and close to fully automated operation.
Although this type of platform design is a new venture for Osiris Projects, the company benefits from the backing and expertise of parent company Bibby Line Group and sister company Bibby Offshore.
The d’ROP is designed initially for exclusive operation from Bibby Athena as an optimised package for remote survey. Deployed vertically through the vessel’s moonpool, the system relies upon the support vessel for forward propulsion, a bespoke heave-compensated umbilical winch and combined LARS for its vertical control with the on-board thrusters maintaining heading and fine adjustments to the lateral position. Maintaining a fixed heading and altitude in relation to a survey line, cable or pipeline, this provides control and stability when compared to traditional mid-size ROV systems. Providing 100% more thrust than an equivalent-sized ROV, the d’ROP's ability to hold station allows it to operate at either a slow speed or stationary for depth of burial surveying.
The design combines proven principles and technology from existing ROVs, ROTVs and methods from the modern day dredging industry with off-the-shelf components to ensure simplicity of operation and maintenance. Whilst the system was designed primarily for precision-tracking of buried cables and pipelines the d’ROP can accept multiple sensors simultaneously, including multibeam echo sounders, magnetometers and sidescan sonars, with resultant data transmitted through a high-performance fibre-optic connection. This flexibility opens up the potential applications of the system and makes it relevant to stakeholders from a range of industries.
