Underwater vehicle – their past, present and future development

Abstract

Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) have many applications in a large variety of submarine areas. In the last period, they are used to replace different missions in rivers, lakes and oceans. Named also underwater robots, both tethered and untethered, they are an integral part of scientific equipment to explore the seas and oceans field. The underwater robots, ROVs and AUVs, are useful in many fields and for a different application such as inspection, bathymetry or mapping. However, we must keep in mind that according to their capabilities they can operate at different depth limit. For example, Hugin 3000 sensor of Knogsberg Maritime, Remus 3000 from Institutului Woods Hole Oceanographic (WHOI), Sea Orache of Bluefin's Robotics and Alistar 3000 of ECA can reach depths of 3000 m.