Low cost ROVs for science

Abstract

NOAA'S National Undersea Research Program at the University of Connecticut, Avery Point, is the national center for test and evaluation of low cost ROVs for scientific applications. LCROVs were viewed as easily transportable and deployable undersea platforms that could deliver specially designed sampling devices and cameras to depths of 330 meters. Since 1984, we have evaluated and developed procedures and tools for utilizing ROV technology to address a wide variety of sampling tasks. Operations in 1988 include a dedicated ROV science program supporting 21 research missions covering a multitude of scientific tasks. Examples of research missions include: herring egg bed studies in the northern Gulf of Maine; juvenile finfish and crustacean habitat definition on the southern New England shelf; hypoxia effects in Long Island Sound; hydrothermal activity in Yelloustone Lake; macrozooplankton migration and sediment transport in the U.S. Great Lakes; deep sound scattering layer definition in the Gulf of Alaska; and the ecology of the deep basins..of.the-East African Rift Lakes system.