Offshore Oil & Gas and Robot Laboratory

360 photo of the lab

Introduction

The Offshore Oil & Gas and Robot laboratory (OOGRLab) is dedicated to the research and development of innovative and breakthrough engineering methodology/methods and technology/techniques for offshore oil & gas exploration and production, as well as advanced robotic technologies for assistance of offshore energy harvest.

The OOGRLab has strong and leading technical competences in the areas of industrial process modeling, analysis, simulation, advanced control and optimization; instrumentation for process measuring and monitoring; conditional awareness and fault diagnostics; fault tolerant control; and offshore robotics. From the application point of view, the OOGRLab has the top-leading competence in the areas of produced water treatment for offshore oil & gas production; optimal control of offshore HVAC systems; multi-phase flow modeling & control; and underwater inspection robot systems.

Facilities

The OOGRLab is equipped with a world-class offshore oil & gas testing facility and a set of advanced inspection robot systems.

Oil & Gas Testing Facility: This testing rig can emulate the offshore oil & gas production process from the downhole of the production well, through transportation pipeline and riser, to the topside separation process and downstream produced water treatment process, in a compact but flexible manner. The key subsystems consists of

Two three-phase gravity-based separators
Different de-oiling hydrocyclone setups
Transportation pipeline and two vertical riser systems
Flow & gas circulation and injection facilities
Flow monitoring and measurement instruments, including different transmitters, sensors and Oil-in-Water monitors;
ABB VIS (VEGA Isokinetic Sampling) Multi-Phase Flow Meter, and
Ceramic Membrane filtration rigs.

OOGRLab Offshore Robot Fleet

The offshore robotic systems can assist the offshore energy production in a much more reliable, effective and environmentally friend ly manner. The OORGlab focuses on research and development of dedicated inspection robot platforms, inspection tools and their corresponding applications.

The current OOGRLab fleet consists of the following robotic systems:

Aerial Inspection Fleet consists of a set of drone systems, including DJI Matrice 100, DJI Mavic Pro and DJI Matrice 600 Pro systems. By attached with necessary inspection tools, they are applied for offshore installation inspection and environmental monitoring around the production areas.

ROV inspection fleet consists of two set of OpenROV and one set of VideoRay PRO 4 equipped with BlueView sonar P450-45-I.
Inline-Pig fleet consists of one set of Inuktun Versatrax 150 inline crawler system.

These robotic systems support the research and development in the areas of mechanical and hydraulic system analysis & design, control system design & implementation, as well as diverse offshore robotic applications, such as aerial oil-spill monitoring, subsea pipeline inspection, pipeline inner-condition inspection,subsea well/sensor data collection. These robot systems also support our investigation and development of semi-autonomous and autonomous offshore robotic systems and their applications.

Features & Services

The OOGRLab has extensive cooperation with different research organizations as well as industrial partners, such as DTU-DHRTC, AU, Cranfield Univ (UK), NTNU (N), NUS (SG), ECUST (CN), U. of Pisa (IT), Maersk Oil A/S, Ramboll Oil & Gas A/S, Semco Maritime A/S, Danfoss, Sub C A/S, Macartney A/S, NEL (UK), Eldor (N), ABB, Clearview Aps (USA) etc. The OOGRLab has also close engagement with international and national professional organizations, such as IEEE-CS, IEEE-RA, IFAC, SPE, IDA and DAu.

The laboratory provides modern and unique facilities for research and testing of offshore energy systems, especially for offshore oil and gas production. The well-equipped separation rig system can support research and testing of flow safety testing, including slugging flow, separation efficiency control, multi-phase flow measurement, water treatment including cyclone and membrane technologies, as well as submarine robots and offshore wind energy systems. It is possible to come up with own models or ideas that can be tested in one of our configurations, and we are always ready to welcome and discuss any potential cooperation from both academic and industrial perspectives.