As autonomous drones are steadily approaching industrial realization, supportive infrastructure is needed to achieve full digital integration. There will always be an element of communication despite advances in autonomy gradually unlocks new vessel-less tasks.

There is a need for the drone to connect to the world.

Seamless digital integration of drones and robots will enhance the potential of these emerging technologies.

So – what lies behind the buzzword “digital integration” in this context?

In short it is the bring-your-own-drone infrastructure that enables efficient and fully streamlined communication between the wireless subsea vehicle and the onshore cloud. It is a concept for how to merge flexible mainstream IoT trends, cyber security, and subsea infrastructure. The concept also describes a possible path to standardization such as OPC-UA.

The presentation will touch into several on-going initiatives and the grand plan on how it all is intended to be tied together and eventually implemented. The digital integration strategy and principles presented is open and can be adopted beyond Equinor.