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Samsung Heavy Industries develops cleaning robot for vessels

Samsung Heavy Industries develops cleaning robot for vessels

Posted October. 22, 2014 15:09,   

한국어

Samsung Heavy Industries said on Tuesday that it developed a robot that can clean the bottom of a vessel in the water. The robot can maintain certain depth and direction in the water using a sensor and can navigate through obstacles. When it brushes away organic matter, the cleaning robot retrieves it with a filter and does not contaminate water.

Until now, shipbuilders had to move a laid-up vessel to a dock to clean it up before delivering it to the customer. This is called re-docking, which requires generally a week. It is a process necessary to remove organic matter such as barnacles attached to a vessel while it is in the sea water.

Since the newly-developed robot can clean a vessel at anchor, a re-docking process is not necessary. Therefore, it can save about a week of time as well as cost as it does not need to set up a prop for a vessel or tow it away.

The world`s third-largest shipmaker plans to use the robot for the shipbuilding of an LNG carrier from November. “The robot’s cost-saving and enhanced productivity will contribute to sharpening our competitive edge in the LNG carrier market," a company source said.