An artificial intelligence (AI)-driven marine welding system capable of handling heavy welding scenarios for offshore oil and gas platforms has been developed by Offshore Oil Engineering Co.
According to its developers, the robot is capable of handling specialized offshore components, like module nodes, buckle rings and deepwater jacket strengthening rings.
Because marine welders need to handle massive, oddly shaped and heavy components like deepwater jacket strengthening rings and module nodes – all of which require a higher level of adaptive, heavy-duty automation – the new AI-driven system is attempting to address this.
With a 30-ton maximum load capacity, the system can reportedly slice through and fuse steel up to 70 mm thick. Further, it has an overall operational efficiency exceeding 40%.
The system is outfitted with AI, visual weld seam recognition and intelligent 3D laser vision alignment, all of which enable the mechanical arm to scan its environment in real time. It maps out a custom multi-layer path-planning strategy for each unique piece of steel, the team added.
The AI-powered welding robot performs the entire welding process autonomously with a single command, using real-time data to correct weld paths, perform root-pass welding and ensure high precision. It achieves a first-pass qualification rate that reportedly exceeds 98%, thus reducing rework costs.
After roughly 10 months of testing and about 1,000 welding trials, the system was deployed alongside an intelligent grinding robot that uses visual positioning and force-control technology to prepare and finish steel sections. This grinding robot has processed more than 500 steel sections and improved efficiency by an estimated 15%, while both systems enable accurate welding and the finishing of large, complex structures that are difficult for human workers and conventional equipment to handle.
