Speaker
Description
Abstract:
Offshore crane operations have traditionally required operators to work directly on platform cabins in hazardous environments—involving complex offshore logistics, high infrastructure costs, and extended periods away from home. Palfinger, in partnership with Aker BP, is transitioning these operations from physical cabins to onshore Integrated Operations Centers.
While remote teleoperation solves logistics and safety challenges, it introduces strict technical requirements: operators lose direct physical sensation and must rely entirely on visual feedback. Safe control demands real-time feedback (<200ms), continuous multi-angle situational awareness, sensor feedback (wind speed, hook height, load weight, and active alarms), and absolute system reliability.
To meet these demands, Palfinger has built a high-performance visual system centered around a GStreamer processing engine. GStreamer handles multi-camera ingestion, hardware-accelerated video decoding, and composition across multi-monitor desks and videowalls. By integrating a dynamic layout engine, operators can hot-swap visual perspectives on the fly—switching between detailed inspection views and wide-angle operational grids seamlessly. Furthermore, native overlay blending pairs live video frames with crane sensor telemetry, while embedded pipeline probes continuously monitor latency, frame delivery, and automated backup failovers.
This talk will explore this system and its use of GStreamer, as well as the difficulties faced in building it. I will demonstrate how combining high-throughput video compositing, real-time telemetry integration, and proactive stream monitoring allows operators seated miles from their crane to control heavy offshore machinery with confidence and precision, as if they were sitting in the cabin.
Takeaways:
- Sub-200ms end-to-end performance is achievable using GStreamer.
- How to composite multi-camera video streams together with live sensor telemetry.
- Leveraging GStreamer telemetry and stream probes to track pipeline health, monitor rendering latency, and trigger seamless backup failovers.
Speaker Bio
Adam Blonsky is an R&D software engineer at Palfinger Marine Norway in Bergen. Originally from the USA and educated in physics he now works on creating integrated solutions for the smooth operation of offshore cranes from onshore control centers. In his free time he prefers to be out hiking in the Norwegian wilderness or home playing piano.
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