What's a Homebuilt ROV ? To answer that question, let's start with "What's an ROV?!" in the first place.
ROV = Remote Operating Vehicle. Fancy words for a submarine "Drone", or fly-by-wire operated submarine.
I'll take the words of others to explain.
Using a series of propellors, ROVs are unoccupied, highly maneuverable underwater robots operated by a person on the surface. An “umbilical” cable carries power and and control signals to the vehicle and video, status and other sensory data back to the operators.
Most ROVs are equipped with at least one video camera and lights. Additional equipment may include one or more sonars, a stills camera, a manipulator or cutting arm and a wide range of sampling options.
We can BUILD these ? Of course! People have been building remotely operated vehicles for decades. The most recent trend is quadcopters, or drones. I've got a couple, and I really enjoy flying them, but the age old problem rears its ugly head from time to time, and that's wrecking them at high speeds... I wanted something to do that was reliable every time and still provided us some enjoyment.
So, I looked to the waters. I was thinking RC Boats, but they can get out of range, flip over, smash into things - basically the whole RC Airplane thing but on water. No thanks.
I looked at submarines. Prebuilt subs were very expensive, and can only go as far down as they can tow an antenna, because wireless doesn't work underwater. So, that was out.
And then, I came across ROV's. There are a TON of home-built sites on the Interwebs, and following one of their examples would end up in a craft that was more than acceptable. But I wanted to put my own spin on things.
There are many designs out there, and they all have one thing in common, and that's go underwater, roam around, take pictures, and come back up. Undamaged. Hopefully.
Let's see how this will work. Follow us as we design and prototype an ROV, and then get it in the water and test and refine.
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