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
The robot remains on board the ship full-time, housed in a portable station. Depending on the ship’s status and location, as well as sea conditions, the crew are then automatically alerted when the hull needs cleaning. At that point, the ship must be at anchor or moored. Once launched, the HullSkater attaches itself to the underside of the ship using its four magnetised wheels. The wheels are fitted with motors that enable it to move along the hull. A rotating brush at the front proactively 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.
