RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A DEPENDABLE ROV SYSTEM FOR SWEDISH MARITIME RESEARCH

Abstract: A Remotely Operated underwater Vehicle (ROV) faces many problems regarding dependability and most issues come during launch and recovery. The thesis looks at finding what dependability aspects shall be considered when developing a modular ROV to come up with recommendations for a system, together with a more reliable method of launching and recovering ROV’s. The area is important since it has been shown that there exists a gap in the market regarding multipurpose and dependable ROV’s. The method used in the thesis is a case study starting with a literature study to get a solid foundation to be able to conduct interviews. The interviews were structured as a semi-structured interview and the data were used to be able to find the important dependability aspects to give out a recommendation of a ROV system. The result shows the different dependability aspects that should be emphasised to ensure a safe system: Reliability, safety, confidentiality, maintainability, availability and integrity. From the recommendation, a simulation was conducted to test the stabilizing force to increase the reliability of launch and recovery. Furthermore, the different tests show that the amount of motion can be lowered by using thruster force as well as adding weight to the system. From the results it can be determined that the use of tether tension as a stabilizing factor is possible by using Dynamic Positioning (DP) to control the ROV’s thrusters to increase reliability.