Michele Spinelli 
Umberto D’Amato
Michele Spinelli and Umberto D’Amato represent Ships Surveys and Service Srl, a Company established in Naples, in 1985 as a Ship Management Company that provide the full management of vessel as well New Building development process, Condition Survey, Pre-purchase Inspection,Vetting pre-inspection,ISM and ISO Audit, Dry-docking supervision,repairs supervision, alteration and or conversion supervise. The Technical and Crew Management expertise enables the company to provide professional management to BulK Carrier and Tankers.
In ROBINS, our contribution was focused in comparing the vessel’s physical inspection and thickness measurements that usually we perform on board of the vessels in service and the evaluation of the same task carried out by the Robotic Autonomous Systems (RAS). Based on our experience in surveys, we had to identify the limits and the benefits of RAS against human inspection. We assisted also in the the design of the testing facility in order to re-create the various area and condition of the vessel.
Since the main role of Ships Surveys and Service Srl has been to offer our expertise and knowledge of manpower, our challenge has been to confirm that part of the same task performed by Surveyors can be performed by RAS too. Moreover, during the trials we faced some problem in communication between the Surveyor and the Operator due to the fact that sometimes the “shipping technical language” can result weird. The problem was on beginning of trials and was solved having a simple briefing and establishing a common technical language between parties.
Our participation in ROBINS project offered us the chance to enrich our knowledge working closely with partners from all around Europe, who work in the same, similar or very different fields, having a vision on the working scenario in the next future. Moreover, to be part of the project that will facilitate and improve, expecially in term os Safety our work, was surely exciting and useful for us.
We believe that, through the analysis conducted in the project, the RAS inspections have a great potential in the ship inspection market because it will save time, costs and will drastically mitigate the risk and hazards associated to inspection of enclosed space compartments.