Autonomous Techniques for anthropogenic Structure Ecological Assessment (AT-SEA)

人为结构生态评估自主技术（AT-SEA）

• 批准号: NE/T010649/1
• 负责人: Daniel Jones
• 金额: $ 61.26万
• 依托单位: NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHY CENTRE
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FT010649%2F1
• 关键词: Autonomous; Techniques; anthropogenic; Structure; Ecological

Thousands of Oil & Gas industry structures in the sea are approaching the end of their lives. At this time, they typically need to be removed and the environment returned to a safe state. This process is known as decommissioning. As many of these sites are old (typically 20+ years) and originally were drilled before the current environmental regulations existed, there has often been some contamination of the seabed around these sites. To ensure that no harmful effects will occur, decommissioning operations need to be supported by an environmental assessment and subsequent monitoring. Monitoring may be required over many years after decommissioning, especially if some structures are left in place. Monitoring surveys in the offshore environment are expensive and time-consuming, requiring ships and many specialist seagoing personnel. This requirement, although vital, will have a considerable cost for industry and the public.Ocean robots, which use computer systems to carry out survey missions by themselves, are regularly used in detailed scientific assessments of the environment. As they collect very high-quality data quickly, such robots have recently been adopted for some tasks by industry but these still require an expensive support ship as they are not capable of long-range missions. Recent technological developments have cut the cost and expanded the range of these robots to thousands of kilometres, making it possible for long-range assessments of multiple sites to be undertaken with a robot launched from the shore. This would have many advantages, improving the quality and quantity of environmental information while cutting the costly requirement for a survey ship and crew. We will carry out the first fully autonomous environmental assessment of multiple decommissioning sites. The Autosub long-range ocean robot submarine ("Boaty McBoatface") will be launched from the shore in Shetland, visit and carry out an environmental assessment at three decommissioning sites in the northern North Sea, before returning around 10 days later with the detailed survey information onboard. The robot will take photographs of the seabed, and these will be automatically stitched together to make a map of the seafloor, structures present, and the animals that live there. Established sensor systems will measure a range of properties of the water, including the presence of oil and gas. As well as the decommissioned sites, the robot will visit a special marine protected area where we know there are natural leaks of gas, to check the robot can reliably detect a leak if it did occur.On return to shore, the project will examine all the data obtained and compare it to that gathered using standard survey ship methods. We will test if the same environmental trends can be identified from both datasets to determine if the automated approach would be a suitable replacement for standard survey ship operations. The project will also produce a fully documented case study, which includes detailed information on the costs and benefits, practical information on deployments and approaches to reduce the risks and improve the efficiency of operations. This will be used by industry, scientists and government regulators, to demonstrate the techniques and will provide the necessary information to potential users to aid in their adoption. The overall goal of the project is to improve the environmental protection of the North Sea at a reduced cost and to demonstrate how this leading UK robotic technology could be used worldwide.

海上数以千计的石油和天然气工业结构正在接近其生命的尽头。此时，通常需要将它们移除并将环境恢复到安全状态。此过程称为退役。由于其中许多地点都很古老（通常超过 20 年），并且最初是在现行环境法规出台之前进行钻探的，因此这些地点周围的海底经常受到一些污染。为了确保不会发生有害影响，退役操作需要得到环境评估和后续监测的支持。退役后可能需要多年的监测，特别是如果某些结构留在原处。近海环境的监测调查既昂贵又耗时，需要船舶和许多专业航海人员。这一要求虽然至关重要，但会给工业界和公众带来相当大的成本。海洋机器人使用计算机系统自行执行调查任务，经常用于对环境进行详细的科学评估。由于它们可以快速收集非常高质量的数据，此类机器人最近已被工业界采用来执行某些任务，但由于它们不具备远程任务的能力，因此仍然需要昂贵的支持船。最近的技术发展降低了成本，并将这些机器人的射程扩大到数千公里，使得利用从岸上发射的机器人对多个地点进行远程评估成为可能。这将有很多优点，可以提高环境信息的质量和数量，同时减少对调查船和船员的昂贵需求。我们将对多个退役地点进行首次完全自主的环境评估。 Autosub远程海洋机器人潜艇（“Boaty McBoatface”）将从设得兰群岛海岸下水，访问北海北部的三个退役地点并进行环境评估，然后在大约10天后返回并进行详细调查船上信息。机器人将拍摄海底照片，然后将这些照片自动拼接在一起，形成海底、现有结构以及生活在那里的动物的地图。现有的传感器系统将测量水的一系列特性，包括石油和天然气的存在。除了退役地点外，机器人还将访问一个特殊的海洋保护区，我们知道那里存在天然气自然泄漏，以检查机器人能否可靠地检测到泄漏（如果确实发生）。返回岸上后，该项目将检查所有获得的数据并将其与使用标准测量船方法收集的数据进行比较。我们将测试是否可以从两个数据集中识别出相同的环境趋势，以确定自动化方法是否适合替代标准测量船操作。该项目还将生成一份完整记录的案例研究，其中包括有关成本和效益的详细信息、有关部署的实用信息以及降低风险和提高运营效率的方法。这将被行业、科学家和政府监管机构用来展示这些技术，并向潜在用户提供必要的信息以帮助其采用。该项目的总体目标是以降低的成本改善北海的环境保护，并展示如何在全球范围内使用这项领先的英国机器人技术。

项目成果

Visualizing Multi-Hectare Seafloor Habitats with BioCam

使用 BioCam 可视化数公顷的海底栖息地

• DOI: http://dx.10.5670/oceanog.2021.supplement.02-34
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Oceanography
• 影响因子: 2.8
• 作者: Thornton B

Insights from the management of offshore energy resources: Toward an ecosystem-services based management approach for deep-ocean industries

近海能源管理的见解：针对深海产业建立基于生态系统服务的管理方法

• DOI: http://dx.10.3389/fmars.2022.994632
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Frontiers in Marine Science
• 影响因子: 3.7
• 作者: Bravo M