I-AUV Docking and Panel Intervention at Sea
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The use of commercially available autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) has increased
during the last fifteen years. While they are mainly used for routine survey missions, there is a set of
applications that nowadays can be only addressed by manned submersibles or work-class remotely
operated vehicles (ROVs) equipped with teleoperated arms: the intervention applications. To allow
these heavy vehicles controlled by human operators to perform intervention tasks, underwater
structures like observatory facilities, subsea panels or oil-well Christmas trees have been adapted,
making them more robust and easier to operate. The TRITON Spanish founded project proposes the
use of a light-weight intervention AUV (I-AUV) to carry out intervention applications simplifying
the adaptation of these underwater structures and drastically reducing the operational cost. To prove
this concept, the Girona 500 I-AUV is used to autonomously dock into an adapted subsea panel and
once docked perform an intervention composed of turning a valve and plugging in/unplugging
a connector. The techniques used for the autonomous docking and manipulation as well as the design
of an adapted subsea panel with a funnel-based docking system are presented in this article together
with the results achieved in a water tank and at sea