Design and Demonstration of a Wireless Hybrid AUV /ROV for Subsea Inspections

We present a novel wireless hybrid AUV/ROV framework tailored for subsea inspection operations. Leveraging advances in onboard computing, underwater communication, and semi-autonomous control, our framework enables vehicles to operate without conventional physical tethers by replacing them with an innovative, software-defined virtual tether. This modular design seamlessly integrates a robust communication subsystem, advanced navigational sensors and a scalable software stack built on UnetStack, ROS2 and MAVLINK. We validate the performance of our system through rigorous testing in both a deepwater ocean simulator and sea trials in Singapore. The results demonstrate that our comprehensive approach not only enhances operational flexibility for intervention surveys but also paves the way for a new generation of untethered underwater vehicles.