Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 10/28/2010 - 18:07
Forums
Antarctic Seafloor Ecology

1) What are the similarities and difference that SCINI has in comparison to other ROV's you have worked with and piloted?

2) What pieces of equipment do you need to have on hand to work on SCINI? What replacement parts do you need to have in Antarctica in case of any damage that may occur to SCINI?

3) Are there any modifications that have been made to SCINI since arriving in Antarctica? Are there any planned?

4) Are there any additional tools or equipment that have been considered to be added to SCINI (e.g. mechanical arm)?

5) Do you see any uses for SCINI outside of Antarctica? How can the technology in SCINI be adapted for use in other fields?

Thu, 11/18/2010 - 19:15

Tina Sander

Here is a stab at some answers...1) What are the similarities and difference that SCINI has in comparison
to other ROV's you have worked with and piloted?
SCINI is like no other ROVs as it is torpedo shaped and has an additional degree of freedom which is tilt. SCINI is shaped like many AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicles), so they are good at flying in straight lines and are usually moving forward in order to make progress. SCINI can lateral move or translate and twist to change heading but the most efficient motion for SCINI is forward. Tilting up and going forward will make the sub climb or come to the surface. Tilting down and going forward will cause SCINI to dive deeper. SCINI needs to be shaped like a torpedo in order to fit down a drilled Ice hole. The added complexity is that it adds the tilt degree of freedom which the pilot needs to be able to control in order to fly SCINI effectively.
2) What pieces of equipment do you need to have on hand to work on SCINI? What replacement parts do you need to have in Antarctica in case
of any damage that may occur to SCINI?
SCINI has many common tools required like screw drivers, nut drivers, Allen Keys, and wire strippers. You would find most of these in any nice common tool kit. SCINI also has several custom tools that we have made such as a special tool to mate and de-mate some of the internal wet mate connectors. We also have several specialized tools required like a helium filling system in order to fill the camera bottle. This keeps the heat inside the can down and also removes any possible humidity drops from condensing inside the viewing dome. The heat is from the power supplies that run the lights and the humidity is from the small amount of water that is in all the air that we breathe.
We also have many spare parts and if we have a catastrophic failure like a flooded housing we would just replace the entire unit while we rebuilt the damaged unit. This also requires us to have small piece parts available. Finally, we actually have two entire SCINI subs assembled and ready to fly.
3) Are there any modifications that have been made to SCINI since arriving in Antarctica? Are there any planned?
Yes, we discovered that a coating on our aluminum plug to electrical cable adapters was causing our bonding material to leak small amounts of water. We have since removed the anodized coating and attempted to reseal the electrical cables. We have had only one small water intrusion issue since this effort was made.
We have also been building and further assembling spare systems when we have a few moments in order to be prepared for any possible future needs or failures. Also, we had to fine tune the ballast and trim configuration of SCINI in order to optimize the control for the water densities in the Antarctic. We have a large test tank in the Science building that we can use to do this modification. Then we fly SCINI in the ocean and make further refinements. The divers watched SCINI on one dive and helped us even more by giving us visual feedback on SCINI's underwater attitude and performance.
4) Are there any additional tools or equipment that have been considered
to be added to SCINI (e.g. mechanical arm)?
Yes, we have added a mechanical arm and have used it a few times already. We have a new subsea tracking system this year that was recently integrated and it works much better than the previous system. We would like to put a scanning sonar on SCINI so we can 'see' far beyond our lights. Also, this would let us avoid as well as locate subsea bottom and midwater targets, and we could possibly even identify schools of fish or even seals.
5) Do you see any uses for SCINI outside of Antarctica? How can the technology in SCINI be adapted for use in other fields?
SCINI would be very useful in any ice covered region such as The Arctic, Greenland, Siberia, Canada, etc. SCINI can quickly access ocean and lake bottoms in Ice covered regions with a simple multi string 8 inch ice hole drilling machine. Three strong adults have successfully drilled a 33 foot long 8 inch diameter hole through snow and ice. The mechanism that SCINI uses to transmit video and control signals over common Ethernet over AC power lines could be used for many relatively shallow (1000 foot) ROV's. These devices are very common now and relatively expensive. SCINI tries to use fairly common somewhat available parts from specialty stores where possible. Of course there are many parts that we must design and custom fabricate like our thrusters, our pressure vessels to hold our electronics, and our custom flotation sections.
Let us know if you have more questions.