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This project involved using a swimming ROV with complete navigation suite to do pre-lay route surveys, touchdown surveys, and post-lay surveys for several power cables that were being laid from the mainland to an island 30 kilometers away. The pre lay survey included spot checking the planned cable routes through rocky areas and over cliffs to verify the best route had been chosen. The touchdown survey required an ROV that could maneuver during changing tidal currents to provide uninterrupted cable touchdown location to the lay vessel. A compact yet powerful ROV was chosen with a small diameter and high voltage umbilical, dynamically vectored thrusters and high power to size ratio. The vehicle was flown in live boat configuration eliminating the LARS and TMS so a smaller vessel could be used for the project. A full navigation suite was also provided with USBL tracking, GPS, Gyro Compass and IMU. Radio telemetry was provided to send the ROV position and video to the lay vessel.

The ROV chosen for this project is optimized for coastal cable lay inspections in channels and other high current locations. Having this highly capable system available with a live boat setup significantly reduced the required vessel size for the customer. Overall, the turnkey setup of the ROV and the navigation suite provided the most cost effective solution without sacrificing survey performance.

Click on the images below for a closer view.

Mohican during Cable Lay.	Cable for Cable Lay.
Cable Lay Barge.	ROV Vessel foreground, Lay Vessel background.
Cable Lay Sunset.