Every water sports enthusiast knows the image of the fouled hull of a ship that has been in the water all season. For ships that sail seas, this pollution is only worse: barnacles, mussels, algae, etc. accumulate and adhere to the hull. One possible solution offers a new robotic system .
Biofouling, as the growth of marine organisms on ship hulls is also called, causes a number of annoying problems. The presence of barnacles, etc., creates extra friction, requiring engines to turn harder to maintain a certain speed. Fuel consumption and exhaust production increase accordingly. Moreover, this brings certain exotic species of barnacles to the home port of the ship to reproduce. This can be to the detriment of species that are naturally present.
Norwegian company Jotun and Sweden's Semcon therefore developed the Hull Skating system that effectively prevents the formation of barnacles and other fouling. It starts by applying a specific coating to the ship's hull. While this coating is itself resistant to biofouling, it is also not damaged by the HullSkater robot, the other main component of the system.
Driving hull cleaning
That robot remains on board the ship full-time, in a portable station. Depending on the status and location of the ship and sea conditions, the crew then automatically receives a signal when the hull needs to be cleaned. The ship must be at anchor or docked at that time. Once launched, the HullSkater clings to the underside of the ship using the four magnetised wheels. The wheels are equipped with motors that provide movement along the hull. A rotating brush at the front preemptively removes the biofilm in which biofouling can develop.
The robot is not autonomous, but is remotely controlled in real time by Jotun employees from a central control post. Here, they receive the camera image captured by the four cameras on the HullSkater. Depending on the size of the ship, it is thus fully cleaned in two to eight hours.
The system currently field tested on ships. The HullSkater can be seen in action in the video below.
