A new robotic hull maintenance device marks a significant leap forward for biofouling control
Lomar Shipping will collaborate with Texan firm Alicia Bots Inc to install its robotic technology on up to 15 vessels.
The autonomous hull-cleaning technology is expected to help reduce hull fouling, reducing fuel consumption, costs and carbon emissions. The collaboration will also help test new use cases, marking a significant leap forward in the maritime industry’s pursuit of efficiency.
Similar hull maintenance products such as Jotun’s HullSkater exist on the market, but Alicia Bots’ multi-purpose magnetic crawler robots are designed to operate autonomously or remotely via a tether cable and are designed to carry out underwater inspection and maintenance tasks on a ship and other steel structures.
The company said adopting a proactive cleaning programme can reduce fuel consumption and resulting greenhouse gas emissions, while also prolonging the service life of antifouling coatings, reducing the point source discharge and cost of reactive underwater cleaning programmes and prevent the transport of invasive species.
Combining precision robotics and AI-powered analytics, these versatile robots are meant for more efficient and proactive practices. Apart from hull grooming, they are slated for use in cargo hold washing and cleaning, firefighting, corrosion detection, reparation assistance, data collection, underwater inspections and thickness measurements.
Lomar’s corporate venture lab, Lomar Labs, will be involved in the collaboration, providing insight into the development of robotics to support maritime operations, particularly in the progress toward establishing the potential for autonomous marine drones.
It is hoped the technology has the potential to reduce manned maintenance operations in dangerous environments such as underwater diving operations for routine cleaning.
Lomar is also making its ships available to Alicia Bots to test new use cases with a project that has received grant-aid from the Singapore MPA, to trial underwater inspections and cleaning in Singapore.
Lomar chief executive Nicholas Georgiou said, “The dawn of AI has significantly altered the way we view technology as a tool to facilitate our maritime industry’s routine operations.”
“In the race to create autonomous systems to support hull cleaning and other essential maintenance jobs on vessels, Alicia Bots has developed stand-out systems that provide huge potential for transforming existing labour-intensive maintenance processes with more efficient and effective AI technology, while also saving on fuel costs and emissions.”
Alicia Bots chief executive Inder Mukhopadhyay added, “Together, we are ushering in a new era of hull grooming, where cutting-edge technology, like the Roverclean, not only ensures a clean hull at all times but also paves the way for a greener and more efficient maritime future."
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