Project AMIS: Autonomous Maritime Inspection Solution

Maritime infrastructures such as bridges, quays, jetties and ship hulls, require regular inspections to ensure timely maintenance and structural safety. Such inspections are today a very time consuming and tedious job. Together with Dutch partner RoyalRoos, ZyGo is developing a solution for autonomous inspection drones that can make the inspections much faster, safer and cost efficient, with the support of the European Crossroads Vlaanderen-Nederland program.

Where RoyalRoos is bringing its naval engineering expertise to design the new floating drone and 3D printing technology for prototyping/production, ZyGo will deliver the software for autonomous navigation and inspection, using state of the art sensors and on-board computing power.

Based on its broad expertise in smart robotics, ZyGo will enable the inspection drone to autonomously navigate and find an optimal path to capture images and data for all relevant parts of complex infrastructures. The inspection will therefore no longer require a team of multiple engineers to guide and follow the drone and make sure all elements are captured by the sensors. It also reduces the risk of errors and rework on-site, as well as enables new business models, such as drone-as-a-service that is much more scalable, especially given the global footprint of maritime inspection activities.

The project will deliver a 3D printed prototype drone with a set of sensors and computing module. A digital version of this drone will first be used in simulations using a digital twin of the use case, before putting the physical drone through testing in the water around Rotterdam, using the specific software developed by ZyGo for the autonomous inspections.

The solution will be implemented commercially soon after the end of the project (March 2026), and discussions with business partners are already on the way.