Digital technology finds inspection roles at sea

International marine certification body DNV GL has begun using camera-equipped drones to improve vessel maintenance inspections, particularly in hard-to-reach areas.

The maritime world is seeing an accelerated acceptance of digital technology, particularly in its regulatory and ship classification sectors. Drones have been a popular choice across both, providing a solution for inspection of difficult-to-access places, areas where there is increased risk to human inspectors, and to provide a high vantage view that previously would have required a helicopter. 

There has also been a suggestion that drones fitted with sniffers could be used to monitor the exhaust of vessels off EU ports to ensure that they are using the required low-sulphur fuel.

The big advantage of using drones, in addition to increasingly low cost and availability, is the ability to record their journeys and so eliminate any worries about human error or faulty recollection. Videos and photos can be uploaded and tagged to a digital or 3D model of a vessel, so stakeholders are able to view the footage and make their own assessments of the situation. 

“Camera-equipped drones are now more widely available, and by using them for a first screening we can identify areas that require closer inspection quickly and without extensive staging, which can be costly,” said Cezary Galinski, manager of the DNV GL classification flying squad based in Gdansk, Poland. 

The certification body is taking digital recording one step further, by equipping its vessel surveyors with special digital cameras that are able to livestream their assessments and record higher-quality video in offline mode. In the long term, there is talk of having each vessel equipped with one of these cameras which would be able to livestream video to a shore-based team that could assist the crew without ever having to step on board.  

These videos are valuable for use in training with augmented reality and in insurance cases, where there may be disputes about an individual’s interpretation of a situation. The videos are also useful to track the development of issues such as corrosion.