MOL Conducts Underwater Drone Demonstration Test for Vessel Bottom Inspection
- Checking Condition of Submerged Areas of the Hull Using Remotely Operated Subsea Vehicle -

February 19, 2019

TOKYO-Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (MOL; President & CEO: Junichiro Ikeda) today announced that it partnered with Sekido Co., Ltd. (President: Takayuki Oshita; Headquarters: Kunitachi-shi, Tokyo) and MOL Marine Co., Ltd. (President: Fukuichi Yamada; Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo) to test the use of a Remotely Operated Subsea Vehicle (subsea ROV) to inspect the submerged areas of the hull on an MOL Marine-operated cable-laying ship.

In general, fouling of outboard equipment and vessel bottom may have a negative impact on vessel operation, such as reduced speed and higher fuel consumption, so such parts require periodic inspection and cleaning.

Conventionally, divers conduct such inspections, but weather and sea conditions affect the inspection work, and in some cases, requires more time and leads to higher costs.

The demonstration test clearly showed the viability of checking for faults and damage to submerged outboard equipment and determining the status of damage to the ship bottom using a subsea ROV.

As a result of the demonstration test, the participants confirmed the operability of the subsea ROV and the precision of the video images, and also verified the method's efficiency, safety, reliability as an alternative to conventional inspection by a diver.

MOL continually adopts new technologies in a proactive manner to make ship maintenance and management more efficient and promote safe vessel operation.

[Checking outboard equipment during the demonstration test]

(*1) Blue Robotics Blue ROV2 (specially designed for ship inspection)
(*2) Shenzhen VxFly Intelligent Information Technology CCROV

[Demonstration Video]