Building the Assurance Case for Recovery of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles from Offshore Platforms

Deeb, Amy (Lloyd's Register) | Garner, Toby (Lloyd's Register) | Kuchekar, Dipali (Lloyd's Register)

OnePetro 

Abstract Digitalization was identified by the International Regulators’ Forum (IRF) as one of three key problems in 2021 due to the petroleum industry becoming increasingly reliant on automated systems. Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are of particular interest for inspection and maintenance of offshore platform infrastructure; however, the integration of such a complex system requires careful mitigation of safety health and environment risks associated with its operation. Analysis of human factors, including ergonomics, job organization, and cognitive considerations, has been recommended by the IRF to increase confidence that the interaction of the operators and the equipment (manually controlled, automated, or autonomous) permits safe delivery of the system capability in a safe working environment. The established CRitical Intervention and OPerability (CRIOP) analysis methodology is chosen as the basis for constructing an assurance case for an AUV control station on an offshore platform. CRIOP's goal is to show that the control center is able to safely manage all modes of operation. This paper proposes a CRIOP Assurance Case Template for a control station on an offshore platform. The proposed template uses goal structuring notation (GSN) with arguments, assumptions, and solutions, following the strategy of the CRIOP methodology. This template supports a critique of CRIOP's completeness arguments, goal-based structure, and solution acceptance criteria. Next, an assurance case for an AUV recovery operation is instantiated from the template for three cases with different autonomy levels: manual, automated with a human-in-the-loop, and autonomous. The increasing level of autonomy was shown to result in both technical and methodological variances to the assurance case including: layout changes as the control station moves from the open deck of a boat to a control room; changes in the acceptance criteria for the expertise of analysis team members; and the recommendation for additional scenarios that address situations in which the level of autonomy must be decreased due to safety concerns. Interviews with experienced AUV operators and developers revealed the value in including operators in the CRIOP analysis team to increase operator confidence in being able to maintain meaningful human control in all modes of operation. It is only with this confidence that autonomous systems will be used for the ambitious missions they can perform.

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