Spot, a robot dog, has been deployed by oil exploration company Aker BP on its Skarv platform in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. Spot’s job is to become the eyes and nose for remote workers on the mainland, check up on safety and operations around the platform, and help robots in their tasks on the platform.

The robotic dog has been developed by Boston Dynamics, and is integrated with Norwegian firm Cognite’s cloud-based AI stack, Cognite Data Fusion.

The vessel is located in the Skarv field, a deep, harshwater environment just 30 miles from the Arctic Circle, which is Aker BP’s northernmost production field. The vessel is a floating production, storage and offloading unit (FPSO), anchored to the seabed 130 miles from Sandnessjoen.

The aim of Spot is to pioneer remote controlled operations and collaborative working with on-platform robots. Spot’s mobility on the platform and his ability to communicate with Cognite and Aker BP has been tested and verified. Data from Spot was available and sorted by Cognite in milliseconds.

Spot has been remote controlled from a Cognite home office onshore in a demonstration that showed how robots and digital twins can have synergies and enhance each other. In addition, data from an operator round was collected to analyse if the sensor-stack on Spot was sufficient to comply with the proposed task.

Cognite Data Fusion served as the data infrastructure for the offshore test which collected images, scans, and sensors from robotics systems and then shared the data across Aker BP via a dashboard to make it actionable. Tasks included: autonomous inspection, high-quality data capture, and automatic report generation. These data insights provide onshore operators with telepresence on offshore installations allowing them complete realtime mission planning and help drive crucial activities.

In addition to Spot, Aker BP has a number of other projects involving drones and other mobile robots to automate remote operations. These are also integrated with Cognite’s technology.

“We are eager to explore how robotics systems can make offshore operations safer, more efficient, and more sustainable. The Spot offshore visit at the Skarv FPSO is one small step towards Aker BP’s vision to digitalise all our operations from cradle to grave to increase productivity, enhance quality, and improve the safety of our employees,” said Karl Johnny Hersvik, CEO of Aker BP.

“Missions like these demonstrate Spot’s value in difficult environments. Cognite continues to excel in testing and validating Spot’s ability to reduce risk to humans and provide value in the energy industry,” said Michael Perry, Vice President of Business Development at Boston Dynamics.

“This historic pairing of minds and machines working together to solve industry problems demonstrates that data driven decisions can change industry now,” said Dr. John Markus Lervik, CEO of Cognite. “This ability to guide Spot by remote control is a huge step forward for the industry and something we will continue to work closely with our partners on as we continue to innovate and provide data driven solutions.”

Cognite Data Fusion (CDF) is a cloud-based industrial data operations and intelligence platform, and it integrates with existing IT and OT applications in the cloud, edge, and on-premise.