Technological perspectives and new robotics applications in deep-sea ocean sciences
Ocean sciences rely on underwater vehicles and observation systems for tasks covering exploration, assessment, medium and long term monitoring in various disciplines. Ifremer develops and manages the underwater vehicle assets for France’s scientific community. From the manned underwater vehicle Nautile, through ROVs and AUVs, each type of vehicle plays its role with a historic expertise in deep-sea intervention. With recent advances in robotics, instrumentation and processing capabilities, the underwater systems unit at Ifremer is currently involved in the renewal and extension of the set of assets. Developments of a novel 6000m AUV and the mid-life upgrade of the deep ROV Victor 6000 will be presented. At stakes are a range of topics and functional evolutions that will profoundly modernize the scientific work: multi-system operations, on-board data interpretation and decision making, multi-sensor payload packages and navigation features designed to enhance the capabilities of observing the benthic environment. The talk will give an overview over current vehicle developments and present outstanding scientific operation scenarios.