Cellula Presenting at Oceanology 2016

Business Development Manager, Allan Spencer, of Cellula UK will be presenting at Oceanology 2016 in London, UK as part of the Geophysics and Geotechnics session.

Remotely Operated Seabed Drilling and Sampling Technology – Performance and Benefits of an Automated System

Date: March 17, 2016
Time: 10:25 AM - 10:50 AM
Location: South Gallery, Room 3 & 4

For more information, view the outline of the conference.

Cellula at Ocean Science Meeting – Booth 402

Cellula Robotics will be an exhibitor at the upcoming Ocean Science Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, February 21-26.

Engineers Jacqueline Nichols and Don Clarke will be on hand to display the new Cetor3000 Plankton Sampler. You can find them at booth 402.

Cosponsored by AGU, ASLO, and TOS, the Ocean Sciences Meeting will consist of a diverse program covering topics in all areas of the ocean sciences discipline.

Successful Completion of CRD100 Sea Trials

Cellula Robotics Ltd. successfully completed sea trials for its second CRD100 seafloor drill for Fukada Salvage & Marine Works Ltd. Co. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC).

The CRD100 is a fourth generation seafloor drill designed to operate in waters down to 3000m depth for geotechnical surveys, mineral exploration and methane gas hydrates sampling.

Built on proven subsystems, the CRD100 is self-contained with a 100 HP power pack.   The CRD100 provides an unprecedented level of intelligent control that facilitates efficient core sampling and CPT pushes.  A wireline tool system further enhances the speed of operation.  The JAMSTEC CRD100 includes “size H” tooling and also supports optional tools for surface sampling (T146) and large cased boreholes.

Fukada Salvage and Marine Works Co., Ltd. (FSM), headquartered in Osaka, Japan is involved marine salvage, steel structure installation, offshore engineering, and other infrastructural improvement projects. FSM is currently introducing deep-sea research equipment and other cutting-edge assets to a fleet of six offshore support vessels to aggressively tackle ocean development projects. For more information, please visit the FSM website.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is one of the world’s leading heavy machinery manufacturers, with consolidated sales of 3,349.5 billion yen in fiscal 2013, the year ended March 31, 2014. MHI’s diverse lineup of products and services encompasses four business domains, “Energy & Environment”, “Commercial Aviation & Transportation Systems”, “Integrated Defense & Space Systems” and “Machinery, Equipment & Infrastructure.” For more information, please visit the MHI website.

Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) is an independent administrative institution whose main objective is to contribute to the advancement of academic research in addition to the improvement of marine science and technology. For more information, please visit the JAMSTEC website.

New Hire

Cellula Robotics has hired a new Senior Mechanical Engineer: Darren Collyer!

Darren joins our mechanical engineering group with 11 years’ experience, and degrees from the University of Manitoba and Oxford Brookes in the UK. Previously a Development Engineer with the Formula One engine manufacturer Mercedes AMG HPP, he’s been involved in a variety of leading edge, technical projects.

Serdar Soylu’s Latest Publication

Cellula’s own Serdar Soylu has just had his paper, “Precise trajectory control for an inspection class ROV”, published in Ocean Engineering. It is currently available online and will be printed in the physical journal in January, 2016.

Abstract

This work addresses the design, implementation and testing of a new precision guidance and control system for an inspection class remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV). A new multi-input multi-output control law, composed of a model-based equivalent control signal and two adaptive signals, is presented. In the controller, the first adaptive signal is a PID signal with a novel adaptation law that enhances the controller performance and allows efficient fine tuning of the controller. The second adaptive signal continuously estimates the upper bound on the lumped uncertainty vector and acts as a corrective term for the equivalent control law. A Lyapunov based guidance algorithm is implemented that can tolerate significant uncertainties in the system kinematics. The effectiveness of the system on an ROV is demonstrated through field trials in sheltered waters. For the experimental work, an extended Kalman filter is used to for navigation, blending the on-board sensor measurements with a process model to produce an estimate of the vehicle dynamics. The collective guidance and navigation system are validated using high precision optical motion capture data. The system achieves decimetre-level precision, significantly extending the capabilities of the ROV for tasks requiring high precision position and velocity control.

The article is available to purchase on ScienceDirect.

Cellula a Finalist at the BC Export Awards

Cellula Robotics has been chosen as a finalist in the Advancing Technology & Innovation category at this year’s BC Export Awards.

The BC Export Awards are an annual showcase of BC’s Top Exporters, recognizing and honouring their achievements and promoting them as corporate role models to stimulate greater involvement in exporting among the province’s business community. For more information see the BC Export Awards website.

The award presentation will take place November 20th.

Cellula Robotics Nominated for BC Export Award

Cellula Robotics has been nominated for the BC Export Awards by Royal Bank of Canada.

The BC Export Awards are an annual showcase of BC’s Top Exporters, recognizing and honouring their achievements and promoting them as corporate role models to stimulate greater involvement in exporting among the province’s business community. For more information see the BC Export Awards page.

The awards will be presented on November 20, 2015.

Serdar Soylu to Present at IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society Event

Cellula Control Systems Engineer, Serdar Soylu, will be presenting at BCIT  on “Coordinated control of small, remotely operated and submerged vehicle-manipulator systems.”

Current submerged science projects such as VENUS and NEPTUNE have revealed the need for small, low-cost and easily deployed underwater remotely operated vehicle-manipulator (ROVM) systems. Unfortunately, existing small remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROV) are not equipped to complete the complex and interactive submerged tasks required for these projects. Adapting a popular small ROV into a ROVM that is capable of low-cost and time-efficient underwater manipulation will help to realize this objective.

The primary focus of this talk it to visit various technical building blocks that ultimately lead to such a coordinated control system for small ROVMs. Several model-based control methodologies are proposed to realize the desired motion produced by the redundancy resolution. For a unifies system (redundancy resolution and controller), a new human-machine interface (HMI) is designed that can facilitate the coordinated control of ROVM systems.

In the first phase of implementation, a small inspection-class ROV is adopted. To improve navigation, a navigation skid is designed that contains a Doppler Velocity Log, a compass, an intertial measurement unit, and acoustic position data. The theoretical and practical results illustrate that the proposed tools can transform. a small, low-cost ROVM system into a highly capable, time-efficient system that can complete complex subsea tasks.

Dr. Serdar Soylu received his B.E degree (with honors) in mechanical engineering from the Dokuz Eylul University in Turkey in 2002, and his M.A.Sc and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Victoria, Canada, in 2005 and 2011 respectively. He has been working for Cellula Robotics as a Control Systems Engineer since 2011 where he also held his NSERC Industrial Research and Development Fellowship (IRDF) from 2012 to 2014 on the automation of seafloor drills.

Event Details:

Date & Time: Thursday 20 August 6:30 PM
Location: BCIT Burnaby Campus, SW1-2019

For more information, contact Jacqueline Nichols at [email protected].

Successful Completion Subsea Well Intervention Valve Packs

Cellula Robotics Ltd. successfully delivers three subsea well intervention valve packs to Blue Ocean Technologies.

In December 2014, Cellula Robotics Ltd. (Cellula) was awarded a contract by Blue Ocean Technologies LLC. (Blue Ocean) to design and manufacture subsea valve packs for the Blue Ocean Riserless Intervention System (BORIS). The valve packs will operate in water depths down to 3000 meters to control critical functions of the BORIS. The project will be designed to the rigorous requirements of ISO 13628-6 and other applicable industry standards.

For this project, Cellula upgraded their manifold testing facility with a high pressure, water based control fluids, flushing station that can clean to NAS 1634 Class 6. The new flushing station reduces the time taken during integration to reach the required cleanliness standard.

Blue Ocean Technologies LLC., which is based in Conroe, Texas, was established in 2008 and became an early player in Riserless Subsea Intervention. The company founders have extensive experience in the field of riserless intervention and the broader organization has extensive knowledge and design experience in subsea and well intervention with a proven riserless intervention track record in water depths in excess of 8,200 feet. In addition, the Blue Ocean team has field-proven capabilities to perform subsea well infrastructure diagnostics, interventions, work overs, remediation, well plugging and abandonment (P&A). For more information, please visit Blue Ocean’s website.