Spain, 19 August 2024
We’ve been hard at work these past months putting our on-demand digital asset integrity system CoreIntegrity through its paces. We beta test new functionality in real-world conditions using HarshLab, a floating laboratory operated by Tecnalia which sits in the Bay of Biscay Marine Energy Platform (BiMEP), two kilometres off the Bilbao coast.
HarshLab is a seven-metre buoy with a three-point mooring system. It allows developers like CoreMarine to test offshore and marine technology in a real environment, under controlled conditions. This gives us an incredible level of certainty when analysing and refining our tech, and the confidence that our systems will work when clients use CoreIntegrity in their own roubst offshore operations.
Hardware upgrades
CoreIntegrity is a condition-based monitoring and analytics platform for subsea assets, employing a combination of hardware and sensors and our own analytics software.
In June and July this year, we headed back offshore to HarshLab to test our new sensors and subsea communication technology. This included installing an underwater ultrasonic hydrophone for communications range testing and noise profiling, plus new and improved models of our existing CoreTracker hardware system.
We also installed an Automatic Identification System (AIS) antenna and receiver, a high-end motion response unit (MRU) and state-of-the-art Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS).
Our goal was to have full systems of CoreIntegrity and CoreTracker deployed to monitor HarshLab in real-time, gathering the data we needed to test and tune our systems. We’ve achieved this, including situational awareness of nearby vessels and the ability to remotely access the hardware for monitoring, testing and system upgrades.
This required improving the power generation onboard HarshLab. We installed upgraded solar panels and a smart lithium phosphate battery.
Underwater and ultrasonic
Our study included a project to test the transmission range of low-powered ultrasonic communications. It was important to do this in the real-world conditions HarshLab provides, with environmental factors including challenging bathymetry, soil conditions and ambient noise. This is the hardest environment for ultrasonic communications: the open sea is far more forgiving!
The project involved fitting an acoustic transmitter to the buoy and a receiver to a boat. The boat then travelled away from HarshLab to test the signal strength at a range of distances. We added a noise source that could be switched on and off to intentionally interfere with the ultrasonic communications, gauge the impact of this interference, and see the number of data packets lost over different distances.
We maintained robust communications up to 250 metres, even with high levels of environmental noise. Beyond 250 metres the signal began to degrade.
