From Saltwater to Freshwater: Leveraging Uncrewed Vehicles Developed for Offshore Energy Use for Inland Waterway Structural Health Monitoring

Abstract

Inland waterway infrastructure for drinking water supply, flood control, and navigation safety in the United States is aging and in need of inspection and monitoring to support continuous operations. Current in-situ methods for structural health monitoring are resource-intensive and may carry unacceptable safety risks, particularly with respect to putting human divers or vessel operators into harm’s way, while small inspection-class remotely operated vehicles may be limited in range, payload capacity, or available topside-supplied power. These traditional approaches can limit the overall efficiency, effectiveness, and ability to carry out critical monitoring when needed. Uncrewed Surface Vehicles (USVs) equipped with underwater Electric Remotely Operated Vehicles (eROVs) can offer a safe, efficient, resource-effective inspection of inland waterway infrastructure for challenging infrastructure inspection projects. Developed to conduct subsea asset inspections for offshore energy projects, these combined USV-eROV systems are capable of withstanding harsh environmental conditions with zero access to external power or fuel supplies for up to 14 days. Uncrewed vehicle-based monitoring technologies provide insights to asset owners in challenging locations, offering early context of developing threats to inland waterway structures. Despite these technological advances, conducting inspections with uncrewed systems requires substantial planning and effort well beyond simple selection of payload instruments. In this paper, we will present key lessons learned of USV-eROV asset inspections in the offshore environment and discuss how these methods are relevant to the inland waterway asset management space.