Nauticus Robotics, a developer of autonomous robots using artificial intelligence for data collection and intervention services for the ocean industries, has been awarded a contract with Petrobras, one of the world’s largest energy companies, to deploy Aquanaut, the company’s autonomous subsea robot, to support Petrobras’ offshore activities.
Petrobras has ramped up efforts recently in robotics and artificial intelligence and is pioneering their application to the offshore sectors.
Toward that end, this relevant contract was competitively awarded to Nauticus and will utilize Aquanaut in Petrobras’ Deepwater Production Field using supervised autonomy for infield inspection services.
The contract consists of approximately two months of subsea inspection time and is one of the largest awarded contracts of its kind to date worldwide.
Nauticus’ success in winning this initial award places it as a relevant player for potential subsequent contracts that Petrobras estimates to be carried out and expands Nauticus’ growing international presence to South America with a leading operator.
Over the past several years, Nauticus has been developing a library of autonomous behaviors based on the latest techniques in machine learning and artificial intelligence, which enable its subsea robots to learn and adapt to the dynamic conditions of working underwater.
The fully electric Aquanaut carries an array of multi-spectral perception sensors that allow the robot to detect, classify, inspect, and act upon subsea infrastructure using its pair of manipulators without direct operator control.
This method provides significant cost and greenhouse gas emissions reductions over conventional methods.
Nicolaus Radford, CEO of Nauticus, says: “A contract with another worldwide leading operator for Nauticus speaks to the state-of-the-art technologies of our autonomous robots as we further penetrate the global markets.
“The market opportunity for Nauticus in offshore Brazil is significant, as it is one of the world’s most active offshore energy basins; we are pleased to enter this market through a world class operator.
“We competed through a rigorous tender process with many well-respected industry competitors to earn this business with Petrobras and eagerly await the deployment of our assets to validate our capabilities.
“We continue to build our robust pipeline of opportunities, giving us confidence to execute on our mission and deliver long-term value to shareholders.”
Petrobras is one of the world’s largest and most active offshore operators, managing 57 platforms, ten thousand miles of oil and gas pipelines, and producing 2.6 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.
