Use of ROVs and AUVs for observations, measurements and experiments in the deep-sea

• Main Author: Sauter, Eberhard
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Barents Sea
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/45085/; https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/45085/2/Abstract_4WS_Sweden_Sauter.pdf; https://www.hs-bremerhaven.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Studienangebot/MAR/Allgemeines/Proceedings_Marine_Energy_4.pdf; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.1fcdc5fb-c67b-4e72-8d89-2ee62201dd5c

Unmanned underwater vehicles made their way into today’s deep-sea research as well. Selected scientific ROV and AUV deployments at a deep-sea observatory and at submarine methane seeps are presented. High quality field observations are the basis of the comprehension of interactions between biology, physics and geochemistry and the understanding of process in marine sciences, respectively. Complex underwater platforms such as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are commonly deployed today in marine research. Under the lead of the AWI several expeditions have been conducted to Håkon Mosby Mud Volcano (HMMV, western Barents Sea) where methane is released at the seafloor in gaseous as well as in dissolved form. Using Ifremer’s ROV Victor 6000 the micro-topography of HMMV was mapped by high resolution multibeam echo sounders [1]. After a visual exploration of the different habitat types by the ROV [2] a systematic video mosaic was recorded with Victor 6000’s downward-looking camera. The geo-referenced video mosaics were interpolated to a habitat map (Figure 1). Although the results were excellent, both, the hydro-acoustic as well as the video mapping could have been accomplished much faster using an AUV instead of a ROV (however, there was no operational AUV available at that time). However, as later efforts to use an AUV at this location to survey the dynamics of a methane plume discharged from HMMV showed impressively, ROV deployments might be more time consuming but may be at the same time more reliable in rough weather areas. For numerous other investigations with manipulation tasks and targeted sampling such as the quantification of bubble ebullition rates by image analysis and the determination fluid flow by an acoustic travel time current meter as well as for the deployment of an autonomous micro profiler module the full size ROV Victor 6000 was very well suited [2, 3]. At the deep-sea long term observatory HAUSGARTEN [4] different kinds of experiments were performed by ...