The ability to predict the waves and act preemptively performs better than the corrective action approach used in conventional systems.
For future work, the team is looking to add autonomous tasks such as using robotic arms to fix electric equipment while holding positions in the water.
“Increasing the use of autonomous robots to help maintain offshore renewable installations could have a transformative effect on cutting the cost of producing clean energy,” said Francesco Giorgio-Serchi, associate professor at the University.
“Advancing this technology further could help bring about a step change in the adoption of unmanned robots at sea and drastically increase the degree of automation in the offshore sector.”