Enhancing Consumer ROV Platforms for the Observation of Juvenile White Sharks (Carcharodon carcharias)

Abstract

The motivation of this project is to develop an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that will allow researchers in Southern California to observe the behavior of juvenile great white sharks in the wild - a first for the field. Due to the availability of capable and relatively low-cost commercial ROVs and open-source ROV designs, such as the OpenROV, our work focuses on developing supplemental hardware modifications to enhance the OpenROV platform for this specific undertaking. The supplemental hardware includes an advanced water sensor package to accompany the existing video camera, as well as a solar-powered tether management system to control the 100-200 meters of trailing tether.

Ultimately, the design and manufacturing of the 18.4 kilogram tether management system and advanced water sensor package were successfully completed and both features were integrated into the ROV's operation. Currently, the tether management system is designed to sit on a boat deck and control the tether in situ. If desired, the tether management system may be mounted to buoyant sea foam and left to float on the ocean surface to allow for distance between the research vessel and the ROV's area of operation. The main sensor payload bay houses four different water sensors (temperature, salinity, turbidity, pH) and is supplemented by an external IMU which measures depth, position and orientation of the vehicle. This combined sensor package not only displays these readings to an operator while the ROV is submerged, but also records them along with the video time stamp for analysis after a dive.