Research Programme: Cyber-Physical Systems
Programme Lead: Dr Andrei Petrovski
Funder/Sponsor: UK Research and Innovation
Project Status: Complete
Overview
The project was undertaken as part of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership programme in collaboration with Viper Innovations, the business of which includes asset integrity management related to subsea control. The programme was partially sponsored by UKRI and supported by BP in terms of providing condition monitoring data and evaluating system functional specifications.
Motivation
Traditional subsea production systems are particularly vulnerable to single-point failures that affect output from several wells. Inaccessibility of the hardware makes fault diagnosis and localisation a difficult challenge due to the inability to see the fault, the remoteness of faulty equipment and the complications of interfering with complex control systems. Improving the timelines and efficiency of logged data analysis can yield substantial cost savings for the operator by enabling a subsea intervention in controlled circumstances.
Real-World Impact
The main result of the programme is the development of a prototype system (V-Sentinel™) capable of carrying out automated detection and identification of faults in subsea control systems. The operation of the developed tool is based on using machine-learning techniques capable of performing fault diagnosis and associated data analysis automatically, enhancing thereby the efficiency and reliability of subsea control systems. Benefits to the operators include, but are not limited to: early fault detection, providing adaptive and dynamic decision support, enabling condition-based (rather than prescriptive) maintenance and improving safety integrity.
