First European Testing Centre for Maritime Robotics located in Viana do Castelo

Developed within the scope of the European project ATLANTIS, led by INESC TEC, the new Test Centre was installed in Viana do Castelo. Funded by the Horizon 2020 programme (€8.5M), it is a unique space in Portugal, and the first in Europe, dedicated to the assessment and maintenance of offshore wind farms, using maritime robotics.

Located near the Lima River, the Centre provides unique conditions to test various types of robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. The ATLANTIS Test Centre is available to the national and international community, and to all those who want to validate and demonstrate their robotic solutions. The test results will be used to identify competitive advantages and assess the TRL of the solutions designed by offshore wind farm managers or owners.

This is the first centre in Europe to specialise in floating offshore wind farms. Benefiting from €8.5M allocated via the Horizon 2020 programme, it features all the necessary infrastructures to support the testing and validation of maritime robotics designed to inspect and maintain offshore structures.

Andry Maykol Pinto, researcher at INESC TEC, professor at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto and coordinator of the ATLANTIS project, explained that the Centre focuses on two main innovation pillars: “the provision of a controlled testing environment for technologies, from their conception phase to product creation, and the characterisation of the potential value of said solutions in the value chain of this expanding sector”.

The coordinator of the project ensured that the new centre will address an existing gap in the process of developing robotic solutions. “Real-world testing is very complex; hence, a lot of the science generated across Europe remains in the laboratories, waiting for demonstration opportunities in real-world environments. The ATLANTIS Test Centre is an opportunity for Europe to sustainably develop robotic and AI applications that aim to increase the sustainability of offshore wind farms”.

This centre is prepared to test technologies included in the three domains of marine environments: aerial, surface, and underwater. In addition, it allows testing and validating developments in AI related to the assessment and maintenance of offshore assets, including tools for resource optimisation, planning and monitoring of operations.

The European project ATLANTIS – The Atlantic Testing Platform for Maritime Robotics: New Frontiers for Inspection and Maintenance of Offshore Energy Infrastructures reinforces the development of technologies to monitor and preserve wind infrastructures at sea; it is led by INESC TEC, with the participation of EDP NEW and support from several major technological and academic partners.

João Formiga, head of renewable technologies at EDP NEW, added that “our main goal is to test solutions that allow, in the short and medium term, to reduce the costs and times of operation and maintenance activities in offshore environments. The introduction of advanced robotic and digital technologies has the potential benefit of increasing the safety of offshore activities and expanding knowledge about the state of the assets. The Test Centre is also a unique and easily accessible place for national tech experts to accelerate the development and testing of their solutions”.

“One of the components of this infrastructure is the existence of a 16-metre-wide and 8-metre-high floating metal structure, which addresses different technical challenges that autonomous robots must overcome”, added Andry Maykol Pinto, also mentioning the presence of anodes, mooring cables and other elements that require periodic inspection and maintenance operations. In addition, the ATLANTIS is equipped with communication and logistics infrastructures for easy placement and collection of water vehicles, support boats and real-time monitoring of operations.

The Test Centre can help companies, universities and research institutes that develop robotic solutions for offshore marine environments, which seek to validate them or even demonstrate them to potential customers. Moreover, it can also be used by offshore inspection and maintenance service providers, as well as asset owners, for demonstration or evaluation of methodologies and requalification of operators.