Probing beneath the sea: Sending vessels into environments too harsh for humans poses challenges in communications, artificial intelligence, and power-supply technology

The improvements being sought in communications, artificial intelligence, and power-supply technology for submersible vehicles is described. Some of the tasks being performed by tethered and untethered remotely operated vehicles in the offshore oil industry are described. After discussing the drawbacks that the use of an umbilical cord entails, attention is given to the research being done on a pulsed blue-green laser beam. This beam could be sent from satellites or aircraft to untethered submersibles. Work being done by the US Naval Ocean Systems Center on through-water acoustic transmission is described. Because the rate at which data can be sent underwater is severely restricted by the medium, gathering real-time pictures from an untethered vehicle requires the compression of video images. Work being done in this field is also described.