{"id":23,"date":"2020-08-17T07:53:07","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T07:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/machine-learning.webcloning.com\/2020\/08\/17\/how-abyss-solutions-helps-keep-offshore-rig-operators-afloat\/"},"modified":"2020-08-17T07:53:07","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T07:53:07","slug":"how-abyss-solutions-helps-keep-offshore-rig-operators-afloat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salarydistribution.com\/machine-learning\/2020\/08\/17\/how-abyss-solutions-helps-keep-offshore-rig-operators-afloat\/","title":{"rendered":"How Abyss Solutions Helps Keep Offshore Rig Operators Afloat"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

As its evocative name suggests, Abyss Solutions is a company taking AI to places where humans can\u2019t \u2014 or shouldn\u2019t \u2014 go.<\/p>\n

The brainchild of four University of Sydney scientists and engineers, six years ago the startup set out to improve the maintenance and observation of industrial equipment.<\/p>\n

It began by developing advanced technology to inspect the most difficult to reach assets of urban water infrastructure systems, such as dams, reservoirs, canals, bridges and ship hulls. Later, it zeroed in on an industry that often operates literally in the dark: offshore oil and gas platforms.<\/p>\n

<\/source>\"Abyss<\/picture><\/a>
Abyss Solutions Lantern Eye output.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few years ago, Abyss CEO Nasir Ahsan and CTO Suchet Bargoti were demonstrating to a Houston-based platform operator the insights they could generate from the image data collected by its underwater Lantern Eye 3D camera. The camera\u2019s sub-millimeter accuracy provides a \u201cway to inspect objects as if you\u2019re taking them out of water,\u201d said Bargoti.<\/p>\n

An employee of the operator interrupted the meeting to describe an ongoing problem the company was having with their topside equipment that was decaying and couldn\u2019t be repaired sufficiently. Once it was clear that Abyss could provide detailed insight into the problem and how to solve it, no more selling was needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery one of these companies is dreading the next Deepwater Horizon,\u201d said Bargoti, referencing the 2010 incident in which BP spilled nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people and countless wildlife, and costing the company $65 billion in cleanup costs and fines. \u201cWhat they wanted to know is, \u2018Will your data analytics help us understand what to fix and when to fix it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Abyss\u2019s combination of NVIDIA GPU-powered deep learning algorithms, unmanned vehicles and innovative underwater cameras is enabling platform operators to spot faults and anomalies such as corrosion on equipment above and below the water and address it before it fails, potentially saving millions of dollars and even a few human lives.<\/p>\n

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the stakes have risen. Offshore rigs have emerged as hotbeds for the spread of the virus, forcing them to adopt strict quarantine procedures that limit the number of people onsite in order to reduce the disease\u2019s spread and minimize interruptions.<\/p>\n

Essentially, this has sped up the industry\u2019s digital transformation push and fueled the urgency of Abyss\u2019 work, said Bargoti. \u201cThey can\u2019t afford to have these things happening,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/source>\"Abyss<\/picture><\/a>
Abyss Solutions corrosion detections.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Better Than Human Performance<\/b><\/h2>\n

Historically, inspection and maintenance of offshore platforms and equipment has been a costly, time-consuming and labor-intensive task for oil and gas companies. It often yields subjective findings that can result in missed needed repairs and unplanned shutdowns.<\/p>\n

An independent audit found that Abyss\u2019 semantic segmentation models are able to detect general corrosion with greater than 90 percent accuracy, while severe corrosion is identified with greater than 97 percent accuracy. Both are significant improvements over human efforts, and also have outcompeted other AI companies in the audit.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, Abyss says that its oil and gas platform clients report reductions in operating costs by as much as 25 percent thanks to its technology.<\/p>\n

Training of Abyss\u2019s models, which rely on many terabytes of data (each platform generates about 1TB a day), occurs on AWS instances running NVIDIA T4 Tensor Core GPUs<\/a>. The company also uses the latest versions of CUDA<\/a> and cuDNN<\/a> in conjunction with TensorFlow to power deep learning applications such as image and video segmentation and classification, and object detection.<\/p>\n

Bargoti said the company also is working with the NVIDIA Jetson TX2 module<\/a> and TensorRT software<\/a> to condense its models so they can run on their unmanned vehicles in real time.<\/p>\n

Most of the data can be processed in the cloud because of the slowness of the corrosion process, but there are times when real-time AI is needed onsite, such as when a robotic vehicle needs to make decisions on where to go next.<\/p>\n

Taking Full Advantage of Inception<\/b><\/h2>\n

As a member of NVIDIA Inception<\/a>, a program to help startups working in AI and data science get to market faster, Abyss has benefited from a try-before-you-buy approach to NVIDIA tech. That\u2019s allowed it to experiment with technologies before making big investments.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also getting valuable advice on what\u2019s coming down the pipe and how to time its work with the release of new GPUs. Bargoti said NVIDIA\u2019s regularly advancing technology is helping Abyss squeeze more data into each compute cycle, pushing it closer to its long-term vision.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be the intel in these unmanned systems that makes smart decisions and pushes the frontier of exploration,\u201d said Bargoti. \u201cIt\u2019s all leading to this better development of perception systems, better development of decision-making systems and better development of robotics systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abyss is taking a deep look at a number of additional markets it believes its technology can help. The team is taking on growth capital and rapidly expanding globally.<\/p>\n

\u201cContinuous investment in R&D and innovation plays a critical role in ensuring Abyss can provide game-changing solutions to the industry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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