Espen Alegria Ulimoen, head of technical advisory, control and safety at ABB, gave Hart Energy insight into the company’s work in subsea automation and digitization.

The company is working to make topology less complex and standardize it. ABB is also working to apply proven equipment and topside functional specifications on subsea equipment and sync the control systems, Ulimoen said.

Ulimoen shared thoughts on this and other aspects of developing digital technology targeting subsea operations.

What are the challenges when it comes to integrating the seabed equipment with digital platforms?

Ulimoen: The big challenge we have is how can we connect the subsea digital environment? We believe we should not make something special for subsea but connect to the same environment that we already have. We should utilize the topside expertise to access the data that we can now obtain from subsea applications.

On the subsea side, the control topology is traditionally very complex with different vendors and brands. The subsea vendors own their own domain by using sub vendors. What you end up with are a lot of engineering tools, a lot of proprietary protocols, closed systems that will have a challenging lifecycle management.

What we are looking into is to simplify things by reducing the complexity of the topology and standardize it and look at how we can apply topside proven equipment and topside functional specifications on subsea equipment and sync the control systems.

How do you envisage the subsea digital network developing?

Ulimoen: You have two paths of getting data to the cloud, the more traditional control systems path that pumps everything through the DCS [distributed control system] and the IoT [Internet of Things] path that can push data through edge analytics into the cloud.

The approach has the advantage that you do not load the control system with all this unnecessary data that the operator doesn’t need. It is a simplified architecture that works on layers with smart devices, IoT sensors and instrumentation with in-built intelligence and connectivity prepared to push data both to a control system and the cloud, all built on a common set of standard technologies.

The subsea system should fully integrate the safety and automation system (SAS) and have safety functionality built in. It should also use proven topside practices and equipment. This will allow cost reductions, increase simplicity and gain the advantages of industrialization.

Shouldn’t this demand come from operators rather than companies such as ABB?

Ulimoen: Operators want simplification and standardization, and we are working together with them to look at the possibilities. We are carrying out a lot of studies and looking at the cost benefits of various solutions.

Why is this taking so long to develop?

Ulimoen: The main challenge with subsea is the cost of qualifying equipment to prove that it has enough reliability to sit there for 20 or 30 years. At the same time, we need to ensure that this same equipment is not obsolete in terms of digitization before it is even put there. It is not that important that the equipment is very sophisticated, but it is important that it collects all the data available so that we can suck it up and put it in a place where we can use it, and then you can enable the algorithms of tomorrow. Who knows what will be available in five or ten years. We must make sure that whatever we put there is transparent enough so that you can access it and use it moving forward.

How important is open architecture?

Ulimoen: It is at the very heart of the solution. We know that the solution needs to be ethernet based, so Profinet, IEC 61850 and for non-control, OPC UA; that is the direction that the industry is moving. As long as it is ethernet based you can change protocols in the future and it is a lot more flexible. You can use a common infrastructure and virtualised solutions.

That is why ABB has made a clear decision that we are going with open architecture. We don’t own any data—the user owns the data; that’s clear. We are talking with operators and subsea vendors, and there are coalitions such as MDIS that are trying to create standards that are accepted by operators.

How important is it to combine subsea and topside control architecture?

Ulimoen: The subsea system needs to work with whatever topside system is out there. Many of these subsea systems will be a tie in to an existing facility so we need to make sure, and that is the point of using open and transparent protocols, that systems from different vendors can communicate with each other. It needs to work everywhere, and you can’t have two different implementations.

You can have the SAS, one way is to just sync it, put the topside SAS to the seabottom so that it shows in a topology like any other components in the facility, although that is highly dependent on what the existing system is.

The other way of doing it is to have a standardized master control station, which is typically the subsea vendor’s interface on the topside to standardise the information models and communication with the topside systems.