An Autonomous Technology of Submarine Pipeline Laying and Monitoring

Submarine pipeline is an important resource transportation equipment between land and sea, which has high strategic value. However, for submarine pipeline laying, the cable limits the movement of ROV (Remote Operated Vehicle) and increases the cost of use, and while the submarine pipeline is laid, the mother ship will be tilted by the action of waves, which is difficult to ensure the accuracy of pipeline laying. To address this series of problems, based on the concept of cross-domain collaboration, an autonomous technology of submarine pipeline laying and monitoring is proposed, which uses ARV (Autonomous Remotely Vehicle) instead of ROV to get rid of the cable limitation and at the same time can monitor the submarine pipeline laying situation in real time. The surface relay USV (Unmanned Surface vehicle) is designed to ensure stable communication with the ARV without using hydro-acoustic communication. The USV is equipped with binocular cameras, which can obtain real-time motion attitude parameters of the mother ship and realize information interaction with the mother ship to improve the overall laying accuracy. After the structural strength calibration of ARV, the simulation analysis of ARV submarine pipeline laying guidance and visual recognition of mother ship's position, it is confirmed that this technology is meaningful to improve the accuracy of submarine pipeline laying.