The Development of ROV Technology
Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many scientists and
engineers worked to develop controllable craft that could extend human
beings’ reach into the deep sea. The first tethered Remotely-Operated
Vehicle, or ROV, was developed by the underwater photographer Dimitri
Rebikoff in 1953.
Much of the critical pioneering work in the
development of ROV technology was done in the 1960s and 1970s by the U.S.
Navy, which needed robotic vehicles to recover underwater ordnance lost
during testing. ROVs first gained some public attention when the Navy used
its Cable Controlled Underwater Recovery Vehicle (CURV) system to recover an
atomic bomb lost off Spain in 1966. CURV was used again in 1973 to save the
pilots of a sunken submersible off Cork, Ireland, with only minutes of air
remaining.
In more recent years, however, some of the
most dramatic examples of ROV development have been made in the private
sector by commercial firms that saw the future in ROV support of offshore
oil operations. Today, as oil exploration migrates into deeper and deeper
waters, ROVs have become an essential part of the operations and have become
not only capable, but highly reliable. With ROVs working as deep as 10,000
feet in support of offshore oil and other tasks, the technology has reached
a level of cost effectiveness that allows organizations from police
departments to academic institutions to operate vehicles that range from
small inspection vehicles to deep ocean research systems.
By far the most famous ROV in the
world was Jason Jr., an ROV developed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution and used to explore the wreck of the White Star liner Titanic
in 1986. Piloted by Martin Bowen, Jason Jr. was able to “fly” deep
into the wreck and photograph areas that would never have been accessible to
towed camera sleds or manned submersibles. Although the historical and
scientific findings of the 1986 Titanic expedition were minimal, the
project became a tremendous media event and firmly established both the use
of ROVs and the exploration of wrecks in the deep ocean in the public’s
mind.
The capabilities of ROVs have
expanded tremendously in the almost twenty years since Jason Jr. first
ventured down Titanic’s grand staircase. While Jason Jr. was
jokingly refered to as a “floating eyeball” – it was equipped only to take
still images and video – modern ROVs like the Triton
XL perform a multitude of tasks in the deep sea, including construction,
trenching and equipment maintenance. ROVs have made it possible for people
to work effectively in one of the most inhospitable places on the planet,
and their coming impact on science and archaeology is only now beginning to
be appreciated.
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