July 14, 2022
HarshLab 2.0 is in!
After several weeks of crazy, variable weather (no one told the Bay of Biscay it’s summertime), the HarshLab2.0 floating offshore laboratory is finally installed!
Developed by TECNALIA Research & Innovation, HarshLab is no ordinary test site. It’s the largest floating laboratory for the offshore industry, located in the Biscay Marine Energy Platform (BiMEP) open sea test zone. HarshLab is moored 1.8 miles off the coast of northern Spain at a depth of 65 metres, making it a truly offshore environment.
We’ve worked with TECNALIA since 2018 to install the first iteration of HarshLab, and we’re stoked to take responsibility for the HARSHLab 2.0 mooring changeover and device installation over recent months.
During the installation we piloted a novel way of configuring Vicinay’s In Line Tensioner (ILT) on the new mooring lines, and were blown away by the results – this approach will make our installation work on future floating devices so much easier.
As well as working on the installation of HarshLab itself, we’re also really excited about the possibilities the new lab offers for the testing and refinement of our own CoreDigital technology.
We’ll be running full-scale system tests of our CoreTracker, which monitors dGPS and floating motions in 6 degrees of freedom. We combine this sensor data with a brand-new underwater vision system and other data streams, run analysis, and present the results in our CoreIntegrity dashboard: a full subsea asset integrity and monitoring system.
While our system is already very robust, HarshLab 2.0 allows us to gather even more data in a range of environmental conditions, further refining our analysis and building up machine learning loops.
This gives clients a real-time overview of the status and behaviour of any floating asset. Operations can instantly be optimised in response to changing conditions, we know exactly when maintenance is required reducing the need for downtime, and can run simulations to predict how an asset will respond to any scenario.
A huge thank you to everyone involved in this challenging operation, especially Ibaizabal Group, BiMEP, Northcom Diving, Marbeco, Vicinay and of course, TECNALIA.