Researchers from Robert Gordon University (RGU) in Scotland have created new software as part of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) which helps pre-empt potential faults in subsea technology.
Dr. Andrei Petrovski and Professor John McCall, members of the Computational Intelligence Group (CIG) at RGU which specializes in adaptive, intelligent computational approaches to problem-solving, began the £122,500 project in October 2011 in partnership with Viper Subsea Technology Ltd.
The resulting system, named "V-Sentinel," is designed to provide autonomous condition monitoring of subsea control systems and flag up potential faults, allowing operators to take preventative action.
Research student Frederic Bouchet, who has now taken a permanent position with Viper Subsea, worked as the project’s KTP Associate and helped develop the software under the guidance of Dr. Petrovski and Prof. McCall.
“In the oil and gas industry, and in particular in the North Sea near Aberdeen, subsea assets are a vital part of oil and gas production,” Frederic said. “However, the environment surrounding these constructions makes maintenance and surveillance difficult and costly.
“At the moment the industry reacts to a fault only after it happened, increasing the chance of potential disaster and the price of repair. The aim of the project was to develop a new solution allowing operators to carry out predictive maintenance of subsea control equipment in order to reduce the cost of repair and to alleviate risk of serious accidents.
“This has been achieved by developing a pattern recognition system looking at abnormal changes in the data collected from operators.”
Jeremy Edwards, operations manager at Viper Subsea, said: “The KTP project with Robert Gordon University succeeded in producing a proof of concept demonstrator to show oil and gas companies at the Offshore Europe 2013 exhibition how artificial intelligence techniques can be used to help identify incipient faults in subsea production control systems before they escalate to the point where hydrocarbon production is impacted.
“We believe that the potential of the techniques developed during the KTP will be viewed by oil and gas operators in the North Sea, and on a global basis, as delivering a major reduction in the lost production that can result from subsea control system failure as well as savings in the cost of repairs.”
CIG is part of the university’s Innovation, Design and Sustainability (IDEAS) research institute and has built strong links with several major companies such as British Telecom (BT) in recent years by helping to apply advanced theoretical techniques to real world issues to drive up efficiency.
Professor McCall, who leads the institute’s Digital Technology research strand, said: “Many real-world problems are complex, involving the consideration of vast amounts of data, the balancing of multiple objectives within challenging constraints and the shifting demands of a fast-moving world.
“We research powerful computational approaches to discover key relationships in data or key problem variables. This allows us to intelligently search for solutions in complex scenarios and provide high performance computation that best adapts resources to demands.
“Our strong track record in working closely with a variety of companies and organizations on real world problems has shown that naturally-inspired approaches, as well as being theoretically interesting, can bring significant added-value to operations. The practical impact of our research is very important to us and we continue to expand our collaborations with industry on challenging problem.”
Photo of Viper Subsea KTP, from left - Dr Andrei Petrovski, Viper Subsea operations manager Jeremy Edwards, Research student Frederic Bouchet, and Professor John McCall, courtesy of Robert Gordon University.
For more information about RGU’s research work, visit www.rgu.ac.uk/research
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