Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Move over Jacques, here come the ROV undersea explorers Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 14:37:03 EST Message-ID: \SE D;LIFE;WAY OF LIFE \SS (WS) \HD Move over Jacques, here come the ROV undersea explorers \BY Bruce V. Bigelow \CR COPLEY NEWS SERVICE They have descended more than 12,000 feet through the black, frigid depths of the North Atlantic to the broken hulk of the majestic Titanic. They have discovered Greco-Roman shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea and searched for the treasure-laden wrecks of Spanish galleons that sank off the Bahamas centuries ago. They have recovered pieces of demolished rocket boosters from the Challenger space shuttle, and scoured the ocean bottom for signs of oil and precious minerals. They are undersea robots, known in the parlance of oceanography as ROVs - remotely operated vehicles. In the last decade, the pace of far-flung discoveries has been breathtaking at times as a 30-year-old technology came of age, say experts. Typically, an ROV is an unmanned, self-propelled device tethered to a surface ship, which controls the robot by an umbilical cord that sometimes stretches for miles. Power can be supplied to the ROV by electric cable and fiber optic lines can transmit instant video images and other signals. At first, ROVs were little more than swimming television cameras. Now, manipulator arms enable some ROVs to cut and weld, assemble equipment, take out bolts and perform other functions at depths beyond the reach of deep-sea divers. The ROV is "essentially the trunk of an elephant," according to Alexander Malahoff, a scientist at the University of Hawaii. "You can be the elephant, and just stand there and use your trunk and pick up whatever you want." Such innovations represent a breakthrough for undersea exploration as significant as the aqualung developed by Jacques Cousteau and a colleague in 1943. "The scuba opened the doors for man to venture down to 130 feet or so, without getting into mixed gases or elaborate diving gear" says Robert L. Wernli, who supervises ROV technology at the U.S. Navy's research and development laboratory in San Diego. "But you couldn't have found the Titanic with scuba." ROVs make it possible to avoid placing divers in danger and are cheaper and easier to operate than manned deep-sea submersibles with safety requirements almost as elaborate as launching a space shuttle. From the beginning, San Diego has served as a leading center for ROV research and development, driven largely by the needs of the Navy and the offshore oil industry. In the early days, when the Navy wanted to recover test missiles and other items from the seafloor, ships towed underwater grappling devices in laborious recovery efforts, Mr. Wernli says. Eventually, video cameras - to guide the search - were added, as were thrusters that allowed the device to move independently of its mother ship. "Now they're fully capable of performing long-term operations at depths up to 20,000 feet," Mr. Wernli says. Now hundreds, if not thousands, of ROVs are used around the world in a variety of commercial uses, Mr. Wernli said. It is possible to buy a "mini-ROV" for use in shallow water for less than $10,000. "Now the goal is to eliminate the tether," Mr. Wernli says, by creating an independent underwater robot known as an "autonomous underwater vehicle," or AUV. Such a craft already is under development in San Diego by Applied Remote Technology Inc., which has built a torpedo-shaped AUV dubbed the XP-21. An AUV avoids some disadvantages of ROVs, such as the possibility of getting the cable tangled, says Ronald A. Walrod, the company's president. But controlling AUVs is trickier, he says, and the lack of an umbilical power supply is a fundamental disadvantage. Nevertheless, Mr. Walrod says, AUVs would be well-suited for pipeline inspections and other surveying jobs, as well as scientific missions that require numerous undersea measurements. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM