Autonomous Exploration and General Visual Inspection of Ship Ballast Water Tanks using Aerial Robots

With the world greatly relying on maritime transport and marine resources, a global At the epicenter of the necessary inspection processes is fleet of approximately 54, 000 large (> 1, 000 gross tons [1]) the General Visual Inspection (GVI). In simple terms, conventional maritime structures are mainly inspected manually by human GVI is the process of "naked eye"-based inspection surveyors, while the broader global fleet involves more than and detection of damages or anomalies that may pose a 100, 000 ships [2]. Among others, the surveyors must inspect risk to the structural integrity and safety of the BWT and the Ballast Water Tanks (BWTs) which represent dangerous, thus the vessel as a whole. As GVI is often the basis upon confined, enclosed environments often with difficult access which further inspections and maintenance are scheduled, via narrow hatches and manholes, low-lighting, slippery automating this process with robots and enabling the ability surfaces, as well as possible oxygen deficiency or presence of for it to take place virtually in any place of the world with toxic gases. The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) little to no human intervention, has the potential to optimize reports that a significant number of accidents aboard ships the inspection and maintenance cycles. This in turn will between 2014-2021 were due to the fall of persons (e.g., greatly reduce the associated costs, while keeping humans within the challenging enclosed ballast tank and cargo hold out of harms way [5].