During 2019 and 2020, many Class Societies have developed guidelines for Remote Inspection Techniques (RIT) using Unmanned Vehicles as Drones and ROV, in order to assess the conditions of the ship and perform hull conditions surveys with reduced human exposure and lower cost.
IACS 42 (Guidelines for RIT), shows the details and recommendations for this type of survey, mainly focus on close-up surveys and gauging.
The drone inspection is definitely a way to save time and money and to enhance SURVEYORS safety, as many of the inspected areas are high risk and difficult to access safely. With SMART SURVEY system, our marine surveyors never have to risk their lives by climbing to high places or be exposed to hostile conditions to conduct surveys.
The maritime industry has the main focus on the capabilities of Unmanned Vehicles to access and navigate the survey areas. In 24marine we have managed to adapt our Vehicles to be able to confirm whether or not the structure contains defects, such as corrosion, pitting, cracking, buckling, or coating breakdown. In the video below, see our vehicles in actions:
Here a summary of benefits of RIT with drones:
- Reduce risk for surveyors and inspectors, which are not exposed to the risks of working at height nor, necessarily to enter confined spaces.
- A lot of time-saving during the inspection.
- Great potential for enhanced quality evidence when assessing the condition of the spaces.
- Reducing ship’s downtime and optimizing the preparation before the repairs.
- Reduce the survey costs
- Improve the efficiency of inspection techniques
- Reduce the survey time (real-time streaming)
- Set limits on conventional risk evaluation
- Ensure a comprehensive risk assessment
- Are easy to operate
- Are environmentally friendly