Aquanaut: A New Tool for Subsea Inspection and Intervention

Human divers are exposed to health and safety risks every time they perform subsea inspection and maintenance work and are limited in their practical depth. Consequently, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) with all manner of tools have become the norm in the subsea realm. ROVs vary considerably in size - but, they all have one thing in common: an umbilical connection to topsides structures. Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), in contrast, have no umbilicals. But, until now, they had had several drawbacks of their own: they can only carry out preprogrammed missions without the option for operator intervention, and they lack sufficient manipulation capability to accomplish ROV tasks. This paper presents a third option for performing both AUV-style inspection missions and the work of a light-intervention ROV: an autonomous underwater robotic vehicle called Aquanaut. As a tetherless, subsea, transformable robot, Aquanaut is able to transform subsea services like inspection, maintenance, repair, drilling support, etc. Aquanaut's novel, patented shape-shifting morphology gives the vehicle the ability to conduct long-range, efficient cruising and to hover with full attitude control for stable, close-in manipulation tasks. This new type of subsea vehicle is enabled by a NASA-inspired spaceflight robotics command and control (C2) architecture that offers operators user-in-the-loop control over low data rates, thereby eliminating the need for costly vessels and mission-limiting tethers.