Underwater hull cleaning is an important part of ship maintenance, which includes all techniques used to keep the part of the ship under the waterline in good condition. The EU-funded BugWright2 project will develop and demonstrate an adaptable autonomous robotic solution for servicing the outer hulls of ships. It will combine the survey capabilities of autonomous micro air vehicles (MAV) and small autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) with teams of magnetic-wheeled crawlers operating directly on the surface of the structure. The project will facilitate a multi-robot visual and acoustic inspection, detecting corrosion patches or cleaning the surface as necessary. What is more, the technology being developed may also be adapted to storage tanks or other structures assembled out of metal plates.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N° 871260.