AMBPR completes sale of first five ship repair robots to Damen Shiprepair Dunkerque

AMBPR, designer and manufacturer of a unique autonomous solution for ship repair - the GreenDock Robot – announced today that it has signed a contract for the sale of five robots to Damen Shiprepair Dunkerque (DSDu). This first sale for AMBPR comes after several years of collaboration between the robot manufacturer and DSDu, which, based on industrial tests, confirmed the robot’s good performance in autonomous washing, UHP and abrasive blast cleaning and painting of ships, as well as its positive environmental impact, reducing water consumption (-90%), pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, etc. The sale was officially signed at SMM in Hamburg 2024, the leading trade fair for Shipbuilding, Machinery and Marine Technology.

AMBPR, a SERCEL company, announced that it has signed a contract with Damen Shiprepair Dunkerque for the sale of the first five ship repair robots. Damen in Dunkerque is thus the first shipyard in the world to acquire the GreenDock Robot, an autonomous solution for washing, UHP and abrasive blast cleaning, and painting of ships.

The official signing took place at the SMM trade fair in Hamburg on September 4^th in the presence of Jeroen Heesters, managing director of Damen Shiprepair and Conversion, Fabien Guillemot, managing director of DSDu, Stephane Renouard, president and founder of AMBPR SAS and Claude Pelzer, VP operations SERCEL Saint Gaudens.

“We were fortunate to quickly receive enthusiastic support from the industry, particularly from Damen Dunkerque. This enabled GreenDock Robot to move from a blank sheet to industrial development at the heart of several French ports, and then to commercial deployment (TRL9) in just a few years”, says Stéphane Renouard, founder and president of AMBPR. “The simultaneous acquisition of five robots by a shipyard which contributed to its development proves that the GreenDock Robot has demonstrated its relevance and found its audience. We are delighted to see that our customer has also been won over by the GreenDock Robot’s CSR benefits and environmental performance. Through this committed choice, Damen Shiprepair Dunkerque positions itself as a leader in what could be a new era in ship repair and sends a strong signal to shipyards all over the world. Many people have helped the GreenDock Robot get to where it is today: we thank them from the bottom of our hearts”.

“Damen Shiprepair Dunkerque is delighted to have successfully implemented the advanced technology that is the GreenDock Robot in its shipyard. This world-first is a major step for us and our industry as a whole”, indicates Fabien Guillemot, Managing Director Damen Shiprepair Dunkerque. “It is important to us to innovate in ship repair and to make the process more environmentally sustainable. For example, the 90% reduction in water consumption achieved thanks to the recycling made possible by AMBPR’s robot, is an exceptional result which will particularly interest maritime stakeholders striving to reduce their environmental footprint.”

Safety, efficiency, quality, environment: parallel progress

GreenDock Robot is a technological innovation designed by AMBPR to achieve several objectives.

By automating difficult and dangerous ship repair operations, the robot improves working conditions for painter-sandblasters.

As in the automotive industry, the automation provided by the robot increases the efficiency and reproducibility of the process, with positive effects on quality and throughput.

Designed to capture and recycle waste - water, abrasives and paint – at source, GreenDock Robot helps shipyards limit their environmental impact by reducing their water consumption (by up to 90% at Damen Shiprepair Dunkerque), decreasing their waste, improving their sorting capacity, and ultimately lowering their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

A 4-in-1 solution with multiple sensors and AI that can be used without programming

GreenDock Robot autonomously performs the four essential ship repair operations: washing, ultra-high water pressure (UHP) and abrasive blast cleaning, and painting.

This versatility is possible because the GreenDock Robot is a “naked robot” - or tool-bearing robot - for which the common base (a cherry picker) is functionalized by the addition of the appropriate tools, the range of which may evolve in the future to meet other market needs.

The robot is designed to be simple, using sensors to scan the ship’s hull, move and adjust its movements, and AI so that the user does not need to do any programming. Rather, after equipping the robot with the right tool - which takes about twenty minutes - an intuitive console is used to simply indicate to the robot the start and end points for the desired task. The robot is then left to work autonomously. Thanks to this use of sensors and AI, GreenDock Robot can treat any ship without needing access to or input of the ship’s plan.