Woodside is an Australian oil and gas company with a global presence, recognised for its world-class capabilities – as an explorer, a developer, a producer and a supplier of energy.

Woodside seeks to enhance its competitiveness through innovation and applying technology that improves safety, reliability and efficient operations in the high-risk and remote environments where they operate.

In mid-2017, Woodside took delivery of one of NASA’s Anthropomorphic Robonauts, which is on loan for a five-year deployment in Perth, Western Australia. The NASA Robonaut project will explore how robotic technology can be used to unlock value from Woodside’s assets.

The Robonaut project complements Woodside’s own robotics program that includes machines capable of conducting tele-operated and semi-autonomous patrols and inspections that were suggested by their operational staff. The first site trial of Woodside’s patrol and inspection machines took place in November 2017 at the Pluto LNG facility. In addition to performing repetitive or high-risk tasks, the robots are also acting as mobile sensor platforms – streaming visual, thermal, ultrasonic, and light detection and ranging (LIDAR) data into Woodside’s existing cognitive and analytics programs. The data gathered is processed and sent to operations and maintenance teams to assist them in identifying equipment faults, errors or where capacity improvements exist.

Further trials are planned at Woodside’s onshore and offshore facilities throughout 2018.