Robot Submarine To Dive Deep In the Caribbean

Roland Piquepaille writes "According to BBC News, a new UK autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), Autosub6000, will soon start to explore the world's deepest undersea volcanoes, located in the Caribbean. Autosub6000 has a range of up to 1,000 kilometers and has a maximum operating depth of 6,000 meters. It is 5.5 meters long, has a diameter of 0.9 meters, and is equipped with a high-performance GPS unit. For these two expeditions, each close to a month long, Autosub6000 will be joined by the Isis remotely operated vehicle, which is able to operate at a depth of 6,000 meters and grab animal specimens. Researchers from the National Oceanography Center in Southampton will lead these missions. They expect that 'one in every two animals they come across will be a species new to science' once the robots reach a depth of 3,000 meters." Specifications for the submarine (PDF) are also available.

Re:Animal specimens?

[magarity]

If you scuba dive to 6k feet, you're bad enough not to care about this sub. On the other hand, I hope it doesn't grab the last female of some highly endangered species that was just about to make a remarkable recovery.

Why only 6000m?

[B5_geek]

Knowing nothing of the engineering involved here I have a laymans question. Why is it limited to 6km? Why can't they fill the sub with a non-conductive liquid like mineral oil, thus negating the effect of pressure on the hull of the sub? If they are carefull about the electronics that they install, they can make sure that there are no air pockets that can be compressed.

Seems much too simple not to work, so why doesn't it?

Re:Why only 6000m?

[jcnnghm]

Must have been a design decision. Subs, even manned subs, have been to the deepest part of the ocean, the Challenger Deep. It's about 11km down IIRC, and life exists at the bottom. There aren't any subs that can dive to that depth today though.

Chances are it's considerably easier and less expensive to build a sub that doesn't dive as deep. Plus, if what you want to study is only under 6km of water, it doesn't make much sense to design for anything else.

one in every two animals a new species

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the exciting part to me. While all the talk recently is of life in space, Mars etc, the possibility of finding 'alien' life down in our oceans is realistic and has incredible implications. There are sulphur eating methanogens down there that live in water temperatures of >400 degrees Celsius, things that redefine what 'life' is. Some of these could yield new materials, new medicines, or fresh insights into evolution.

Re:Why only 6000m?

[Athena1101]

I work on AUVs for a US company. 6000m pretty much covers 99% of the ocean floor; it's not worth the engineering tradeoffs to go deeper. And yeah, filling pressure vessels with mineral oil is one strategy, but honestly the bigger issues are power and navigation.

Is there a secret secondary mission?

[Shipwack]

I wonder if there is any intention to do any deep sea reconnaissance on lost subs or sunken ships? Maybe not at the extreme 6K level, but a bit closer than that. Wouldn't be the first time that deep sea exploration was used as a cover for something else... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USNS_Glomar_Explorer_(T-AG-193) [wikipedia.org]