Nereus (underwater vehicle)

The Nereus (after the Greek sea god Nereus ) is a deep-sea robots WHOI. He arrived on 31 May 2009 with 10,902 m depth the bottom of the Mariana trench. It is used on the research vessel Kilo Moana SWATH USN.

Construction

The $ 5 million expensive diving robot is built on an aluminum frame, in which the individual components are embedded. The sensitive instruments such as cameras and electronics are protected by ceramic cases before the high pressure. The buoyancy is ensured by hollow ceramic spheres. Also built in the skeleton are the lithium -ion batteries that last for 1 ½ days, and sonar devices. The environment of the robot can be illuminated for cameras up to 3 m wide with LED headlights. The Nereus is thus about 2.8 tons.

Use

The Nereus is a hybrid of ROV and AUV dar. It has rechargeable batteries, with whom he usually up to 20 hours is acting on its own, but it is also possible to connect it to a 40- km-long fiber -optic cable through which he dates as chemical analyzes and sends images to the surface.

As AUV Nereus mapped independently the seabed by leaves him firmly situated patterns. He makes regular basis and photographs. The ROV mode, however, it is controlled by the cable. To him, an aluminum platform can be mounted even that, can transport additional cameras and samples from the seabed up to 25 kg of scientific equipment.

Nereus explored by the Trieste by Jacques Piccard and Kaiko third in the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench.

An 8 million dollar project was ever funded by the National Science Foundation. Also, the Office of Naval Research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Russell Family Foundation and the WHOI took over costs.