Remotion is a robotics development company in Norway, specializing in hull maintenance on ships both above and below the water. Their unique Magnetic Remote Operated Vehicles can operate in the splash zone and handle demanding hydrodynamics with ease.
They can be deployed directly on the FPSO (Floating Production Storage and Offloading) or platform without an additional support vessel. In up to 4.5m Hs wave height, the systems can perform a close visual inspection with full HD quality pictures, habitat installations, surface treatment, non-destructive testing, and light construction tasks.
Remotion’s existing carrier robot Helios is big and heavy, at about 1x1m and 270kg. There was a need for a smaller version for lighter jobs, so Remotion started to develop the new robot Proteus.
The challenge faced by Remotion
Proteus is much smaller, at around 55x70cm, with a weight of only 70 kg. It attaches to the steel surface of the ship hull using permanent magnets. A key challenge when designing this robot was the space limitation inside the robot.
The entire electronics module is very compact. In order to fit everything in, they needed a small switch that could be used as the backbone of the system.
BotBlox’s solution
This was where BotBlox came in. By using the GigaBlox, Remotion’s engineers managed to fit everything they needed within the enclosure, with the added benefit of it being significantly cheaper than what they had been using previously.
It would not have been possible to build the system as small as they expected by using the components they were using previously. “BotBlox hardware is easy to use, easy to implement, all around great for our uses,” commented Espen Johan Magnussen, Senior Design Engineer at Remotion.
Remotion plans to launch Proteus later this year, leveraging the benefits of the GigaBlox solution. They also plan to use the GigaBlox in the Helios system to implement a different camera system, for similar reasons (small, low-cost and easy to use) as they used it on the Proteus. Additionally, the GigaBlox has proven to be reliable without any failures, making it a promising solution for Remotion's future robotic endeavors.