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Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. - 川崎重工业株式会社

Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd.
川崎重工业株式会社

Manufacturer

Japanese heavy-industry group (TSE: 7012) whose SPICE 3,000 m AUV uses a robot arm and wireless-charging dock for close-range subsea pipeline inspection.

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Company Overview

Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. (KHI) is a Japanese diversified engineering and manufacturing group, incorporated on 15 October 1896, with head offices in Minato-ku, Tokyo and in Kobe Crystal Tower, Chuo-ku, Kobe. For the fiscal year ended 31 March 2026 it reported consolidated revenue of 2,311.3 billion yen and 41,652 employees, and it is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange under code 7012. The president is Yasuhiko Hashimoto.

The group's businesses span aerospace (P-1 and C-2 aircraft for the Japan Ministry of Defense, Boeing 787 structures, BK117 helicopters, aero-engines and H-IIA/H-IIB payload fairings), rolling stock through Kawasaki Railcar Manufacturing (Shinkansen, commuter cars and locomotives), the Energy Solution & Marine Engineering Company (energy, environmental and marine engineering, including liquefied hydrogen supply-chain equipment, ships and submarines), Kawasaki Motors (motorcycles, off-road vehicles, JET SKI watercraft and general-purpose engines), and the Precision Machinery & Robot Company. That company makes hydraulic pumps, motors and valves and is one of the pioneering industrial robot makers, supplying robots for welding, assembly, handling, painting and palletising to the automotive and electronics industries.

In marine robotics, Kawasaki developed SPICE (Subsea Precise Inspector with Close Eyes), an autonomous underwater vehicle with a robot arm for close-range inspection of subsea pipelines. Research began in 2013 and drew on the company's experience with submarines and deep-submergence rescue vehicles. According to Kawasaki's technical review, the first commercial model is 5.6 m long, 1.3 m wide and 1.5 m high, weighs about 2.5 tonnes in air, is rated to 3,000 m and has a top speed of 4 knots, inspecting pipelines at about 2 knots. A lithium polymer battery provides about 10 hours of inspection work. The vehicle navigates with an inertial navigation system corrected by acoustic positioning from the support vessel and uses multibeam sonar to find and track the pipeline.

The six-degree-of-freedom robot arm has three actively controlled axes and three passive links. It carries an Inspection Tool Unit with stabilising fins and damping that keeps sensors at a controlled distance from the pipe, and its control logic compensates for vehicle motion. SPICE works with a Kawasaki docking station that is suspended from the support ship and rated to 500 m. The AUV latches onto the station using acoustic and optical guidance, recharges in about three hours through a 10 kW electromagnetic induction link at 90 percent or higher efficiency, and uploads inspection data over a 100 Mbps optical wireless link. Because it launches from and returns to the dock automatically, SPICE does not need divers, a dedicated ROV pilot or a dynamically positioned vessel.

Development milestones include site testing on a roughly 700 m pipeline at 230 m depth at the Tau Autonomy Centre in Norway, prepared by Stinger in 2020, and a pipe-tracking verification under the DeepStar and Nippon Foundation programmes. In 2021 UK company Modus Subsea Services ordered two SPICE systems for North Sea and global pipeline work in what was described as a multi-million-pound investment. A joint offshore test with TotalEnergies off Awaji Island, Hyogo, integrated TotalEnergies' Light Touch Cathodic Protection sensor and measured pipeline electrical potential with the robot arm to assess corrosion protection. The Nippon Foundation and Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism supported the arm, sensor and data-processing work. Kawasaki exhibited SPICE as a multifunction AUV at Techno-Ocean 2025 in Kobe and has said it plans to extend the technology to floating offshore wind and other underwater structures.

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Contact Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd.

WEBSITE

https://global.kawasaki.com/

PHONE

+81 3 3435 2111

HEADQUARTERS

1-3 Higashikawasaki-cho 1-chome, Kobe Crystal Tower
1-14-5 Kaigan, Minato-ku
Kobe , Hyogo  650-8680

Japan

Company Facts

Founded

1896

Primary Role

Manufacturer

Company Size

-

Primary Region

Asia-Pacific

Annual Sales

-

Funding Stage

Public

Funding Total

-

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