Today, oil and gas exploration has migrated into deeper and deeper waters, and Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) have become an integral part of these operations. The technology developed to create the first ROVs was funded by the United States Navy in the 1960s. This allowed for the ability to retrieve objects from the ocean floor and to perform deep-sea rescue operations. The offshore oil and gas industry has created the work class ROV to assist in the development of offshore oil fields and deep water drilling support.
The underwater robots are linked to a ship by a group of cables that carry electrical power, video and data signals back and forth between the operator and the vehicle. This component of the exhibition provides an introduction to underwater robotics.
The offshore industry has been moving into deeper waters to seek out resources, and as a result new challenges have arisen for the standard methods of ocean floor mapping. A new and exciting prospect that has arisen is the Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV). The final component of the ROV section provides extensive information on this new technology, regarded as 'the future of offshore survey.'