Streaming live video from underwater drones to remote viewers

Wednesday, March 18, 2020 / Trondheim, Norway

People and businesses are hurting, and communities are in quarantine. The news about the spread of COVID-19 is bombarding us. Fortunately, we have access to well-developed technologies such as video conferences and other cloud-based tools to help us communicate and run most of our daily operations remotely, preventing the virus from spreading further.

In Blueye, we’ve been working on a live stream solution to use together with our underwater drones. We recently decided to push this forward as the pandemic is forcing more people to stay at home, taking care of loved ones, and trying to fulfill their job at the same time. The solution can reduce the need for travel as colleagues, and other experts can follow underwater inspections in real-time online.

Enabling remote inspections with Blueye underwater drones

During the COVID-19 lockdown in Norway, we've learned how some industries are critical for our society to keep it together. In addition to health care systems and medicine, the supply of food, water, and energy is critically important to keep things running as usual. Inspecting water pipes and supervise farmed fish to secure their health is still essential.

Blueye Live Stream setup
Blueye Live Stream

The Blueye live stream solution enables the ROV operator to stream live video feed from the Blueye App to the internet via their iOS or Android device. The live stream solution requires only one person with a underwater drone on-site and provides a quick way to make decisions. The ROV pilot does not need to have much knowledge of what they're looking at, as he or she can involve decision-makers or experts in real-time by live video broadcasted over the internet.

Screengrab from the Blueye Pro inspecting pipes in Korsvika
Screengrab from the Blueye App live video stream Photo: Blueye Robotics
Remote office following a Blueye live stream from a fish farm
Illustration of a person remotely watching an inspection from a fish farm Photo: Blueye

For industries such as fish farming and maritime, even though some of their staff cannot travel to the location, they can still follow a broadcast of an inspection in real-time online. Watching real-time opens up for experts to comment and give directions to the pilot. That will enable quicker decision-making and can save critical time and cost.

Tested with 1500 simultaneous remote viewers

Even though we made the live stream feature public before we could Blueye-approve 100%, we decided to give it a real good try together with our local newspaper Adresseavisen. During these difficult times, it felt nice to give people sitting at home a break and something interesting to watch below the surface - while we could test our live stream feature at a large scale. At one point during the stream, we even had 1500 remote viewers, without any significant blunders!

See the highlights from the broadcast.

Screengrad from Adresseavisen live streaming Blueye
Adresseavisen hosted the Blueye Live Stream

Do you want to get started with remote inspections?

Read instructions found on our Blueye Help Center or get directly in touch with the team.