SPICE
Galería
Descripción general
Japanese pipeline-inspection AUV with a robotic arm that follows subsea pipelines and recharges at an underwater dock.
SPICE (Subsea Precise Inspector with Close Eyes) is an autonomous underwater vehicle from Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries built for one job: inspecting subsea pipelines without an ROV and a large support ship. The roughly 5.6 m, 2.5-tonne vehicle carries a robotic arm that holds inspection sensors close to the pipe while it tracks the line autonomously, measuring coating condition and cathodic-protection potential. It works with a Kawasaki docking station on the seabed, where it can recharge and pass its data back to the surface, and it can be launched and recovered underwater. In tests off Japan it demonstrated stable pipe tracking and measured pipeline electrical potential with TotalEnergies, and UK contractor Modus Subsea Services operates SPICE vehicles commercially.
Roles principales
Notas
Kawasaki specifications: about 5.6 m long, 1.4 m wide, 1.1 m high, about 2,500 kg in air, one main propeller with side and vertical thrusters, inertial navigation. Depth (3,000 m) and speed (4 kn) come from one listing. Modus Subsea Services bought two systems in 2021; in 2023 it measured pipeline electrical potential with TotalEnergies.
