The Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) has acquired a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) for the Dutch National Research Fleet. This underwater robot can conduct measurements and perform useful tasks on the sea floor.
The NIOZ has contracted the Norwegian technology firm Kystdesign to build the ROV. On Tuesday, 28 January, NIOZ Director Han Dolman and Tore Nedland, Director of Kystdesign, signed the contract for the construction of the underwater robot. The ROV of the Supporter 6000 type will be delivered in June 2026 and will serve the entire Dutch marine research community.
An ROV is an advanced robot that can perform tasks on the ocean floor. It is connected by a long cable to a research vessel and controlled from there by pilots. This underwater robot can conduct scientific research at depths of up to 6000 metres. It is equipped with six high-resolution cameras and 41 electrical connectors for interfacing external equipment such as tooling, survey sensors, and cameras.
It also accommodates 24 hydraulic functions, all proportionally controlled. The ROV control system is prepared for a variety of auto functions like AutoPOS and AutoTRACK capabilities, in addition to over-the-horizon control from a Remote Operation Center (ROC) onshore.
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Arms take over human work
‘The robot is equipped to take over the work of humans at great water depths,’ explains Gert-Jan Reichart, head of the NIOZ Ocean Systems department. ‘With its six high-resolution cameras and strong gripping arms, it forms our eyes and arms underwater. One of them can rotate along seven different axes. That’s more than a human arm can move. The ROV is also equipped with a so-called Atlas arm, which is so strong that it can break open shipwrecks for archaeologists, or break off pieces of rocks for geologists.’
There are several more functions that turn the robot into a deep-sea high-tech laboratory. Reichart: ‘The ROV offers us researchers helping hands on the ocean floor. It can blow away sediment to improve visibility, it has a vacuum tube to suck up small sea creatures, it can make 3D scans, it has Multi Beam instruments for mapping the sea bed, and it will be able to not only take the temperature of deep-sea hydrothermal vents, but also take samples to determine which metals are present.’
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On board the RV Anna Weber-van Bosse
The ROV will be assigned a role aboard the RV Anna Weber-van Bosse, the future flagship of the Dutch research fleet. With a length of 3 metres and a weight of 4.5 tonnes, the ROV will need a special winch and crane mounted on the deck of the Anna Weber-van Bosse. It has been financed by a grant from the Large-Scale Scientific Infrastructure fund.
Reichart explains that it will bring the Netherlands from an age of observations to an age of “hands-on” experimentation in the deep ocean. ‘We’ll be able to conduct experiments that marine researchers have had to rely on foreign expeditions to do until now. Things like working with stable isotope tracers, where you cover deep sea corals and sponges with a box, and then add for example isotopic labelled sugar or carbon dioxide. That allows us to determine who eats whom in the deep ocean, which is important for understanding the ecology of the deep ocean.’
Source NIOZ/Kystdesign.
Picture: The Kystdesign ROV Supporter 6000 (provided by NIOZ).
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