The World's Biggest Undersea Robot

Roland Piquepaille writes "According to redOrbit.com, companies installing subsea cables for telecommunications companies and pipelines for the oil industry now have a new tool, the UT-1 Ultra Trencher which is the world's biggest subsea robot. This beauty weighs 60 tons (out of the water) and has a length of 7.8 meters, a width of 7.8 meters and a height of 5.6 meters. In fact, it has the dimensions of a small house but is more expensive, carrying a price tag of about £10 million. It can move at a speed of 2 to 3 knots under the sea. And it can trench pipelines with a 1-meter diameter in deep waters of up to 1,500 meters."

Sadly no,

...it does NOT run Linux.

Re:Sadly no,

But you can stil welcome our new giant robotic under(water)lord!

The Terrible Secret of Oceans

I was more interested in knowing if it was a pusher robot or a shover robot.

Grandma is protected at the bottom of the ocean.

Re:Sadly no,

but does it blend?

Quite effectively I would imagine, much to the dismay of sea cucumbers, and other seafloor dwelling creatures.

Not A Robot

Robots have at least some degree of autonomy. This is a bad-ass RC vehicle.

Our future overlords are increasingly unimpressed with us taking their name in vain.

Incorrect...

one definition of "robot" is

A machine or device that operates...by remote control [answers.com].

Re:Incorrect...

A weak, unhelpful definition in any context- I operate my computer remotely via a keyboard. If that was the only criterion, the concept of 'robot' as opposed to any 'machine', would be diluted to the point of uselessness.

But you linked, and so are informative.

Re:Incorrect...

But you linked, and so are informative.

..and you disagreed, so you are insightful.

Re:

Well, I deserved it. I've been stung by fanboy mods in the last few days, and was needlessly prissy. I laughed....

Maybe you could get some insightfuls, and we could carry on like this forever.

Re:

Robots have at least some degree of autonomy. This is a bad-ass RC vehicle.

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't cut that undersea cable."

In other news..

The Open UT-1 Ultra Trencher project announced that it has been accepted to Google's Summer of Code. Prospective students must have access to their own UT-1 to be considered.

Pics

There's a picture on ZDNET's page. [zdnet.com]

A picture

Since the linked article is a bit light on them:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=870

Spec sheet here [ctcmarine.com] (PDF 917KB)

So if undersea cables criss-cross each other...

There are a huge number of undersea cables and pipes that currently reside on the surface of the ocean floor. How will they be affected by this device?

Furthermore, even if the "water knife" does not damage existing infrastructure, it will still be there when you go to run your new cable. Unless you manage to thread your cable under it somehow, there will be points where it will be exposed above the soil where it junctions with existing cable. Perhaps that's an acceptable issue today, but in a century when we have millions of miles of fiber-optics undersea, it may not.

Re:

Perhaps that's an acceptable issue today, but in a century when we have millions of miles of fiber-optics undersea, it may not.

Hopefully by then we'll have better robotics (or better manned equipment) able to deal with that problem.

Re:

wow there might be an issue 100 years in the future, better abandon the project.

Re:So if undersea cables criss-cross each other...

There are a huge number of undersea cables and pipes that currently reside on the surface of the ocean floor. How will they be affected by this device?

Remember to Dial Before You Dig, and after you dig, dial again to make sure you severed the cable.

Re:

Remember to Dial Before You Dig, and after you dig, dial again to make sure you severed the cable.

Wow, I didn't know my phone installer posted on slashdot! Hi there, remember me? Green house, picket fence, you cut my cable the DAY OF THE SOPRANOS FINAL

dimensions of a small house...

it has the dimensions of a small house but is more expensive, carrying a price tag of about £10 million

Hmmm... judging by the UK housing market, it'll probably soon be cheaper to live in an undersea cable robot worth £10 million... sub-prime mortgages not withstanding...

Out of water?

This beauty weighs 60 tons (out of the water)

Weight is the affect of gravity on a mass so it still weighs 60 tons but the water provides buoyancy so if you put it on a scale it won't read 60 tons. Granted the gravity will be different 1500 meters down but that wasn't the implication of "out of water".

Re:Out of water?

If we want to nitpick...a ton is *not* a unit of weight. It's a unit of mass. Mass != weight. The corresponding unit of weight is the "ton force".

The Abyss?

Is it just me or does that look like it came right out of the movie The Abyss? It looks like a yellow, miniature version of their habitat. I'm sure the MPAA is working on their patent lawsuit.

Crafty excuse for the wife

Wife: Aww, you're gonna be out a couple days working again?

You: Yep, I'll be out laying pipe.

Interesting, but how useful?

Current undersea trenching is done using plows pulled by ships. I highly doubt that even this large robot is going to be able to match the power of a 60,000 ton ship pulling a plow. And considering the need to dig fairly deep below the seabed in order to protect from wayward anchors and fishing nets, I have to question the usefulness of this robot. It might be useful for smaller, brown-water cables where you need the protection but can't afford to hire a ship to plow the trench, but the big ocean-spanning cables probably won't use this robot.

Re:

The trencher doesn't use a plow, no. It uses a pair of jet-cutters. A jet-cutter is a large pump connected to a very small nozzle that blasts the sea floor away with high pressure water. One jet-cutter on either side of the pipe or cable and the blast of w