Remotely Operated Vehicle (the ROV)

A nightly event here on the Nancy Foster is to collect the multi-beam sonar data from 4pm until 8am the next morning. The scientists call it "Sweeping the Floor" because they simply are scanning the seafloor in a sweeping type pattern back and forth and back and forth, over and over again. They say it drives the crew crazy to drive the ship in that motion all night long, but it is what needs to be done!

Then in the morning the next day, after the processing of the data from the entire night has been completed (I helped with the backscatter and bathymetry processing) we deploy the ROV. The ROV has a video and still camera attached to it and it is deployed into the water. Then in the wet lab there is a control operator who drives the ROV around to explore the surroundings. The purpose of this process is to ground truth the above discussed multi-beam bathymetry (depth) data. This is also used to confirm the different benthic habitats that are found such as sandy bottom, coral cover, etc.

Below is a picture of the ROV on deck. Then a video of the ROV retrieval and then a video of the ROV deployment.