A BRIEF HISTORY OF ROVs

Exactly who to credit with developing the first ROV will probably remain clouded, however, there are two who deserve credit. The PUV (Programmed Underwater Vehicle) was a torpedo developed by Luppis-Whitehead Automobile in Austria in 1864, however, the first tethered ROV, named POODLE, was developed by Dimitri Rebikoff in 1953.

The United States Navy is credited with advancing the technology to an operational state in its quest to develop robots to recover underwater ordnance lost during at-sea tests. ROVs gained in fame when US Navy CURV (Cable Controlled Underwater Recovery Vehicle) systems recovered an atomic bomb lost off Palomares Spain in an aircraft accident in 1966, and then saved the pilots of a sunken submersible off Cork, Ireland, the Pisces III, in 1973, with only minutes of air remaining.

The next step in advancing the technology was performed by commercial firms that saw the future in ROV support of offshore oil operations. Two of the first ROVs developed for offshore work were the RCV-225 and the RCV-150 developed by Hydro-Products in the U.S. Many other firms developed a similar line of small inspection vehicles. 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.

It was once thought that something thrown into the ocean was lost and gone forever, however, organizations such as Mitsui and JAMSTEC in Japan have ended that vision. With the development of their ultra-deep ROV Kaiko (photo at right), they have reached the deepest part of the ocean—the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, at 10,909 meters. A record to be tied, but never exceeded.