Micropiling Drill Rig for Subsea Micropiles
Surface & Subsea Power, Control and Telemetry Platform — with Subsea Micropiles
Project Overview
MJR Power & Automation Delivers a Complete Surface and Subsea Power, Control and Telemetry Platform for a Subsea Micropiling Drill Rig
Specialist MV cable installation, termination, jointing and testing for the marine and offshore industry, plus bespoke drilling software featuring real-time animation.
Subsea Micropiles is a pioneer of advanced foundation technologies designed to lower the impact and cost of secure anchoring in complex subsea conditions. Ghe anchoring that offshore structures depend on. MJR Power & Automation has a long standing relationship with them, and working closely together the two developed and delivered a high performance surface and subsea power and control system platform with sophisticated telemetry, instrumentation and control software.
The project scope included a turnkey design, build, supply, installation and commissioning package covering all aspects of the electrical power, control, software, telemetry and monitoring of the subsea drilling rig, including both topside and subsea equipment.
The project scope included a turnkey design, build, supply, installation and commissioning package covering all aspects of the electrical power, control, software, telemetry and monitoring of the subsea drilling rig, including both topside and subsea equipment.
At the heart of it is a bespoke drilling software platform developed jointly with Subsea Micropiles, with features more normally associated with much larger drilling systems found on deepwater mobile drilling units and drillships. Real time animation gives the driller a visual status of the drilling operation and pile position, live data streams provide performance feedback, and everything is logged so that both the data and the operation can be monitored onshore.
Project significance A driller sitting on a vessel is operating a machine on the seabed that they cannot see. Everything they know about what the rig is doing, where the pile is, what the drill is meeting, whether a clamp has closed, arrives through the control system. The quality of that system is not a convenience; it is the entire basis on which the operation is run.
The challenge
Everything the driller knows arrives through the control system.
The rig works on the seabed. Pile position, drill progress, clamp states, hydraulic pressures, oil levels and temperatures all have to be measured subsea, transmitted topside and presented in a form the driller can act on immediately.
Electronics that have to survive at depth.
Subsea control pods and I/O stations operate at ambient pressure, which is why the I/O stations are pressure compensated and oil filled rather than housed in atmospheric enclosures. Every sensor, camera and harness has to work wet and stay working.
Medium voltage power alongside people.
The subsea hydraulic power unit is fed at medium voltage from the same container the operators sit in, so power distribution had to be physically segregated from the control room with interlocking that makes contact with live parts impossible rather than merely unlikely.
A container that has to be lifted offshore.
The control and power van is an ISO 20ft unit certified to DNV 2.7-1, the standard for offshore containers, so it can be craned onto and off vessels as a self-contained spread.
Three masts, one operator.
The system controls three separate masts with their own clamps, loaders, rotation heads and hydraulic packs. Interlocking between them has to prevent conflicting commands without slowing the operation down.
First of a kind, with no reference system.
This is a new machine built on a pioneering foundation technology. There was no existing control system to modify and no established operating practice to design against, so the software had to be developed jointly with the client as the machine itself took shape.
Scope of Work
Turnkey — Design, Build, Supply, Installation and Commissioning
Covering all aspects of the electrical power, control, software, telemetry and monitoring of the subsea drilling rig, topside and subsea:
- DNV 2.7-1 approved ISO 20ft control and power van, with MV PDU for the subsea HPU
- Redundant drilling and subsea control system with data logging package
- Comprehensive subsea sensor and CCTV package
- Subsea pods and pressure compensated oil filled I/O stations
- All subsea harnesses
- Electrically driven umbilical winch
- Bespoke drilling software platform
- Installation and commissioning
- Remote access to the entire control system via encrypted 5G industrial router, and via vessel VSAT during offshore operations
Solutions Delivered
The Software — A drillship interface on a micropiling rig
The bespoke drilling platform, developed with Subsea Micropiles and running on MAP-OE, gives the driller a real time animated view of the drilling operation and pile position, with live data streams providing performance feedback as the pile goes in — drill rate, average rate, total depth and specific energy shown alongside the machine graphic.
The comparison the source makes is worth keeping: these are features more normally associated with much larger drilling systems on deepwater mobile drilling units and drillships. A micropiling rig is a fraction of the size of a drillship, and it has been given the same class of operator interface.
The Diagnostics — Built for the technician, not just the operator
Beyond the drilling screens, the system provides an engineering layer that is unusually complete for equipment of this scale: real time digital and analogue input and output status, analogue input scaling and calibration, joystick sensitivity and dead band configuration, PWM output configuration, configurable alarm thresholds and delays, alarm enable and disable with disabled alarms shown as warnings, graphical interlock configuration per mast, user and group management, and network diagnostics that locate a fault graphically rather than describing it.
The practical point is that a technician offshore can test sensors during maintenance, trace a fault to a position on the network, and adjust the machine to suit conditions — without waiting for a specialist to travel out.
The Subsea Hardware — Working wet
Subsea control pods and pressure compensated oil filled I/O stations put the input and output electronics on the machine itself rather than running every signal up the umbilical, supported by a comprehensive sensor and CCTV package and MJR-supplied subsea harnesses throughout.
The Power Van — Segregation and interlocking
Power is supplied from a a power van with separate control room and power distribution compartments. Because distribution to the subsea vehicle is at medium voltage, it is physically segregated from the control room and protected by Castell type safety key interlocks together with hard wired secondary interlocks, so that personnel cannot come into contact with dangerous voltages.
The Remote Access — Onshore eyes on a seabed operation
The entire control system is remotely accessible over an encrypted 5G industrial router, and via the vessel's VSAT during offshore operations. All data is logged, and both the data and the operation itself can be accessed and monitored onshore, with a historian and analysis package for retrospective review.
Delivery & Approval
Quayside Testing and Commissioning, Ahead of Offshore Trials
The system was installed and commissioned with the rig at the quayside, with the drillers' operating station tested in its final configuration before the rig went offshore for trials.
The control and power van is certified to DNV 2.7-1 for offshore lifting and use.
Technical Summary
- Client Subsea Micropiles
- Application Subsea micropiling drill rig for offshore structure anchoring
- Sector Offshore Construction & Subsea
- MJR scope Turnkey design, build, supply, installation and commissioning
- Topside power DNV 2.7-1 approved ISO 20ft control and power van with MV PDU
- Safety interlocking Castell type safety key interlocks plus hard wired secondary interlocks
- Control system Redundant drilling and subsea control with data logging
- Automation platform MJR MAP-OE
- Subsea electronics Control pods and pressure compensated oil filled I/O stations
- Sensing Comprehensive subsea sensor and CCTV package
- Handling Electrically driven umbilical winch
- Masts controlled Three
- Remote access Encrypted 5G industrial router; vessel VSAT offshore
- Data Full historian, logging of all system parameters and user interaction
Project Outcomes
Complete platform delivered, deck to seabed.
One supplier covering power, control, software, telemetry, instrumentation and monitoring across both topside and subsea equipment.
An operator interface above its weight class.
Features normally found on deepwater mobile drilling units and drillships, applied to a micropiling rig.
Diagnostics that keep the machine working offshore.
Technicians can test sensors, trace network faults graphically and reconfigure alarms and interlocks in the field, which is what determines uptime on equipment a long way from support.
Personnel separated from medium voltage.
Segregated distribution with Castell key interlocking and hard-wired secondary interlocks in a certified offshore container.
Operations visible from shore.
Encrypted remote access and full data logging allow the operation and its data to be monitored onshore during offshore campaigns.
A strategic partnership rather than a supply contract.
The software was developed jointly with the client, and the source frames the relationship as an ongoing partnership to advance the efficiency and safety of subsea operations.
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