Survey the seabed in days, not weeks.
Vessel + ROV campaigns are slow, weather-bound and expensive. AUVs fly long pipelines and seabed areas at speed, from smaller vessels, with fewer people offshore. ROVs stay where they shine: intervention.
Industry data; illustrative ranges. See notes below.
The old way is holding you back
Conventional campaigns tie your integrity programme to vessel schedules, weather windows and big offshore spreads.
Slow
A tethered ROV crawls along a pipeline at about 0.25–0.5 knots.
Schedule-dependent
Large DP vessels must be booked months ahead and wait on weather.
Costly
Vessel days dominate the bill, and big spreads need many people offshore.
Weather-bound
Managing an umbilical in high sea states stops work.
Vessel + ROV vs AUV
Reported results from a regional pipeline pilot and published industry studies.
Vessel + ROV
Tethered, slow, tied to a large spread and the weather window.
AUV
Untethered, fast, runs below the weather from a smaller vessel.
Same 155 km line. Fewer days.
Reported pilot result, illustrative only.
Illustrative: reported result from one regional 155 km pipeline pilot (19 to 7 days). Not a guarantee; results depend on scope and conditions.
One pass. Every dataset.
Pipeline inspection
Long-line survey with sonar, bathymetry and imagery at constant altitude.
Non-contact CP
Field-gradient sensing along the whole line, including buried sections.
Seabed mapping
Synthetic aperture sonar covering around 4.5 km² per hour.
Cleaner data
No umbilical-induced motion, so steadier acoustic and visual data.
How an AUV campaign runs
Scope & engineering review
We define the corridor, assets, sensors and data deliverables with your integrity team, and decide where an ROV is still needed.
Mission planning
Survey lines, altitude, sensor settings and safety cases are planned and simulated before anyone goes offshore.
Lean mobilisation
A compact AUV spread on a smaller vessel, mobilised in days rather than weeks.
Autonomous survey
The AUV runs the pipeline or seabed area at speed: sonar, bathymetry, imagery and non-contact CP in a single pass.
Targeted ROV follow-up
Only flagged anomalies get a close-in ROV visit or intervention, so the right tool goes to each part of the job.
Data processing & QC
Data is checked, aligned and processed onshore into event listings, charts and integrity-ready reports.
Integrity reporting
Clear findings and recommendations that plug into your integrity management system.
Fewer vessel days. Better data.
Tell us about your pipeline or survey area and we will scope an AUV-led campaign.
Figures are drawn from published industry data (technical conference papers, operator pilots and equipment specifications) and are illustrative ranges, not guarantees. Reported results: survey speed about 3–3.7 kn for survey AUVs vs 0.25–0.5 kn for a pipeline-following ROV; inspection time cut from 19 to 7 days on a 155 km pipeline pilot; up to 55% lower inspection cost; 30–40% total survey savings; around 40% less time offshore. Actual results depend on scope, water depth, field conditions and data requirements.