Kawasaki – Not Just Motorcycles

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

Autonomous underwater technologies have been gaining momentum. Kawasaki Heavy Industries announced that it had completed the verification test of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The test was carried out at a UK marine testing and training facility in Fort William, Scotland.

An AUV is capable of autonomously acting according to its surrounding conditions while carrying out pre-assigned missions, which stands in contrast to the more widely used remotely operated vehicle (ROV), which needs a tether cable for its operation.

As a result, AUVs can be operated without dedicated operators on the mothership or special onboard equipment. Furthermore, tasks such as charging and transferring collected inspection data to the mother ship can be carried out while the AUV is underwater, which enables longer deployment time and reduces the frequency of launching and recovery work.

Tests at sea used a prototype AUV and a charging station, and included automated docking of the AUV to the charging station, contactless charging, and large-capacity optical communication operations.

According to the company’s website, Kawasaki has been developing advanced component technologies of AUVs utilizing sophisticated underwater vehicle technologies fostered in-house over the years, with support from a subsidization project by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT).

The company plans to pursue full-scale development of a pipeline-inspection AUV which utilizes the automated docking and other component technologies tested in Scotland, as well as control algorithms being developed in cooperation with the UK’s Heriot-Watt University, with the aim of commercializing the AUV by the end of 2020.