Abstract
The Maritime industry is witnessing a rapid transformation with the introduction of robotic technologies to address various challenges. The crucial tasks from Hull cleaning and maintenance to anti-piracy are incorporating robotic technologies. Ship hull maintenance is one such area that needs immediate attention as the maintenance of ships requires enormous manpower, money, and time. Ship hull maintenance includes tasks like inspection, blasting, painting, and fouling. In this regard, employing robots for these tedious tasks would save more time and money. This research work focuses on the development of ship maintenance robots and optimisation of the performance. The aim of this master thesis is the development of an optimization module for an efficient area coverage of the ship hull which helps in effective performance of any maintenance task. With the help of the evolutionary algorithms, this optimisation module would assist the robot in achieving the uniformity and efficiency in the task.