Design and Testing of a Light-Weight ROV for Deep-Sea Research and Exploration

The scientific community has utilized unmanned underwater vehicles for ocean exploration since the mid-twentieth century, resulting in a well-cultivated and ever-changing discipline used in marine operations. The deep-sea environment presents unique and harsh criteria due to the increased pressure found at depth and the vehicle components necessary to overcome it. The size and weight of underwater vehicles typically increase as operational depth increases, resulting in physically large systems with high operational costs to accommodate deep-sea research. This project demonstrated the ability to reduce the weight and size of an existing 300 meter rated ROV by 8.6% and 26 %, respectively, through the replacement of buoyancy foam with hollow carbon fiber structural components, as well as replacement of a twisted pair copper wire tether with a fiber-optic microtether. The resulting vehicle “ROV FiberFish” had a weight in air of 116 newtons and a size of 50,000 cubic centimeters. A system of this size and capability directly serves to increase accessibility to the world's oceans, and provides a baseline model for future design of underwater vehicles attempting to minimize size and implement structural buoyancy to their architecture.