Unplugged, an engineering firm for industrial inductive modules, offered their paper, “Enabling Resident AUV and ROV Subsea Operations: The Function of Wi-fi Inductive Charging and Docking Stations,” on the Offshore Expertise Convention 2025.
The paper explores the potential of wi-fi inductive charging know-how, enabling the deployment of Subsea Docking Stations (SDS) as a cornerstone for the operation of resident autonomous underwater drones.
A notable milestone was achieved in 2023 at Equinor’s Njord Discipline within the North Sea, the place an SDS facilitated a world-record 165-days steady operation of an underwater drone. The drone efficiently docked and undocked 280 occasions on the SDS inductive chargers to recharge its batteries and switch mission information, establishing itself as a completely operational resident system. This breakthrough highlights the important thing function of inductive know-how as an enabler of steady autonomous subsea operations.
The core success of the subsea docking station offered within the paper stems from its basis in open innovation and collaborative standardization, that are important for establishing a completely interoperable subsea ecosystem. Drawing inspiration from a land-based gasoline station—the place any car, irrespective of name, can refuel seamlessly—the SDS achieves interoperability and compatibility throughout a number of drone sorts and producers. That is made doable by integrating superior but standardized inductive charging know-how, enabling wi-fi switch of each energy and information.
Past the offshore power sector, the paper examines how inductive charging stations, initially designed for oil and gasoline functions using work-class Remotely Operated Automobiles (ROVs), are being reimagined and tailored to assist charging and docking of microdrones, i.e. Autonomous Underwater Automobiles (AUVs), in rising markets similar to aquaculture.
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