Inspection and maintenance of industrial infrastructure with autonomous underwater robots

Underwater infrastructure, such as pipelines, requires regular inspection and maintenance including cleaning, welding of defects and valve-turning or hot-stabbing. At the moment, these tasks are mostly performed by divers and Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) but the use of intervention Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (intervention-AUVs) can greatly reduce operation time, risk, and cost. However, autonomous underwater manipulation has not yet reached a high technological readiness and is an intensively researched topic. This review identifies key requirements based on necessary inspection and maintenance methods, linking them to the current technology and deriving major challenges which need to be addressed in development. These include the handling of tools, where a separation between handheld and mounted tools is detected in already employed underwater intervention vehicles such as the Sabertooth by Saab Seaeye or the Aquanaut by Nauticus robotics, two vehicles capable of semi-autonomous intervention. The main challenge identified concerns high level autonomy, i.e., the process of decision-making. This process includes detecting the correct point of interest, maximizing the workspace of the manipulator, planning the manipulation considering required forces, and monitoring the progress to allow for corrections and high quality results. In order to overcome these issues, reliable close range sensing and precise end point navigation is needed. By identifying these persisting challenges, the paper provides inspiration for further development directions in the field of autonomous underwater intervention.