BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 19. Italy’s Saipem has announced that its advanced underwater inspection drone, FlatFish, has successfully completed a key testing phase under a contract awarded by Brazil’s Petrobras in 2023, marking significant progress toward full offshore deployment, Trend reports via Saipem.
The completed stage included Functional Acceptance Tests conducted in a controlled environment to verify that all system capabilities — from mission autonomy to data quality — meet the required technical and operational standards.
Following the successful outcome, Petrobras has approved the transition to the final phase of the project, which envisages full-scale deployment of the FlatFish technology in real offshore conditions in Brazil’s ultra-deep waters.
The testing campaign took place at Saipem’s underwater drone facility in Trieste, Italy, in the presence of Petrobras representatives. During the trials, the drone demonstrated its full operational capabilities, carrying out multiple fully autonomous inspection missions. These included subsea structure and pipeline inspections, cathodic protection measurements, and wall-thickness assessments.
FlatFish is a hybrid, fully autonomous underwater inspection drone developed within Saipem’s “Hydrone” program, which aims to industrialize a new generation of subsea robots capable of performing complex inspection tasks at depths of up to 3,000 meters.
Saipem said it continues to invest in cutting-edge underwater robotics technologies, supporting applications ranging from shallow waters to ultra-deep offshore environments, including both resident and semi-resident deployment solutions.
The company highlighted that its long-term partnership with Petrobras is playing a key role in advancing strategic capabilities for the offshore energy sector.