Survey and Inspection Subgroup

The Survey and Inspection Subgroup is another new addition to the DeepWind family of Subgroups for 2023. It brings together members that are active across all stages of the offshore wind projects including early stage development of sites, throughout the construction and during the operational and maintenance phases. Not just for the offshore elements of the wind farm but many members also cover the onshore phase for cable and substation related surveys and inspections.    

Surveys
Used to mainly to understand the site's environmental characteristics or provide an overarching viewpoint of an asset.

• Site characteristic surveys include hydrographic using sonar sensors on vessels; towed platforms or un-crewed systems such as Unmanned Surface Vessels (USV) or Autonomous Underwater Vessels (AUV); geophysical and geotechnical including UXO (Unxploded Ordinance) identification using sub-bottom profiling or a form of mechanical sampling; metocean studies include wind resouce measurement using FLiDAR* and oceanographic sensors; and EIA's (flora, fauna and human activities).
• Asset surveys could include cable depth of burial, scanning for digital twin, and on-site bathymetric survey.

Inspection
These are typically conducted using people (technicians/divers) or remote robotic platforms to understand specific areas of an asset that are susceptible to damage or failure. Various imaging technologies can be used with the acquired data overlayed to form a measurable reference framework (point-cloud). These include sonar, cameras, laser scanners, ultrasonic etc..

Both surveys and inspections are becoming increasing dependant on the ability to extract the most relevant data from what can be a mass of captured information and the proper interpretation or analysis of this data is of key importance. 

*Floating Light Detection and Ranging 

List of Survey and Inspection Subgroup members

The Survey and Inspection Subgroup is now 174 members strong and our Industry Co-chairs are Mike Ellis from Sonardyne International and Craig Davis of Beam. Companies wishing to join this one of our newer subgroups can submit a DeepWind membership application and select the Survey and Inspection Subgroup in the subgroup section. Existing DeepWind members can just ask to be added to this subgroup.