DEVELOPMENT OF AN UNDER-ICE REMOTELY OPERATED/AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE

BENTHOS, A WORLD LEADER IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ROVS, WITH THEMIT SEA GRANT RESEARCH LABORATORY, A GROUP FOCUSED ON AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE CONTROL SYSTEMS, HAVE CONCEIVED A COMPACTVEHICLE SYSTEM CAPABLE OF SUPPORTING RESEARCH IN AREAS INACCESSIBLE TO MANNED SUBMERSIBLES, SUCH AS UNDER ICE. THESELF-POWERED VEHICLE WILL BE CAPABLE OF TRANSMITTING REAL TIME VIDEO AND SENSOR DATA VIA A FIBER OPTIC UMBILICAL TO A SURFACE STATION. USE OF FIBER OPTIC TECHNOLOGY ALSO ALLOWS THE VEHICLE LARGE LATERAL EXCURSION CAPABILITY. THE PROPOSED CONTROL SYSTEM IS BASED ON AN MIT DEVELOPED "LAYERED" CONTROL SYSTEM PHILOSOPHY AND WILL ACCOMODATE BOTHOPERATOR SUPERVISED ROV CONTROL AND, IN THE EVENT OF UMBILICAL LINK LOSS, AUTONOMOUSLY RETURN THE VEHICLE TO A SURFACE STATION. PRELIMINARY EQUIPMENT SPACE, WEIGHT, AND POWER ALLOCATIONS SHOW THAT A GENEROUS PAYLOAD MODULE WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR MISSION SPECIFIC SENSORS. THE CONCEPT INCORPORATES STANDARD BENTHOS PRODUCTION ROV MODULES AND COMPONENTS, MINIMIZING DEVELOPMENT RISK, ALLOWING RAPID FUTURE FINALIZATION AND COMMERCIALIZATION SYSTEMS. THE OBJECTIVE OF THE PROPOSED PHASE 1 EFFORT IS TO CONFIRM THE BASELINE CONCEPT, AND DEFINE SYSTEM COMPONENTS AND THEIRINTEGRATION IN SUFFICIENT DETAIL TO ESTABLISH A DESIGN SPECIFICATION FOR PHASE 2 PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENT AND PHASE 3 COMMERCIALIZATION.