Tag: drones

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and drone company Saildrone will launch the first batch of 11 unmanned sailing vehicles these days, as part of NOAA’s expanding use of technologies to advance fisheries, weather and climate science.

Airbus and Wilhelmsen Ships Service have entered into a strategic collaboration to drive the development of shore-to-ship drone delivery to one of the busiest ports in the world, Singapore. The announcement was made on the sidelines of Posidonia exhibition in Athens earlier his month.

As global air traffic is expected to double over the next 20 years, flight safety must be safeguarded. Currently most drones fall under differing national rules. Hence, on June 12th of 2018, MEPs approved an agreement between Council and Parliament negotiators in November 2017, to ensure a common level of safety for drones.

Wilhelmsen Ships Service will cooperate with Airbus in the Agency by Air project. This project aims to test shore-to-ship drone delivery services at the Port of Singapore. The project will be launched during the third quarter of 2018. The two-week shore-to-ship pilot trial will begin by delivering parcels to vessels anchored off the coast of Singapore.

An automated drone system by the company Airobotics is being used, with the aim to survey and map the construction of the new Gulf Port in Haifa, Israel. The drones, which are fully automated and they don't need someone to operate them, perform reclamation areas surveys; Breakwater construction monitoring; and Stockpile measurement.

The UK MCA and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution ran a special week-long event to test the use of drones, along a stretch of coastline at St Athan, Wales. A selection of drones were used in four different search and rescue scenarios to explore how they could be used to help save lives in the future.

At BP’s Thunder Horse oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, a robot called Maggie performs the dangerous job of inspection by using magnetic tracks to move through the pipes connecting the oil facility to the sea floor. Maggie by using magnetic crawlers, moves through rigs, platforms, and pipelines leveraging ultrasonic test devices and high-definition cameras.

ClassNK has released its Guidelines for Use of Drones in Class Surveys, incorporating the applicable range and procedures for use of drones in class surveys, the technical considerations for safe operation and the requirements for drone service suppliers. As drone-related technologies are improving at an extremely rapid pace, application in diverse fields is increasingly expected. 

An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is an aircraft with no pilot on board that is controlled remotely or able to fly autonomously based on a pre-defined flight route and/or dynamic automation systems. ABS released a Guidance Note to present practice recommendations on the use of UAVs for more efficient inspections.

Drones are gaining more and more a position in maritime industry, especially in ship inspections -conventionally conducted by humans-, as they have been identified as a way to save time and money and to enhance workforce safety.