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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (10757)	6/3/2010 9:24:28 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24235

ROVs... [-] Arthur75 These ROVs and under water tools are quite impressive. To what extend are they "remote operated" or "robots" ? By that I mean, is the level of command something like "unscrew bolt number 3" (and the machine has a complete 3D model of the thing, some kind of sensors, and does the job from there), or is it more highly skilled people having direct access to all the movements and functions of the machine through joysticks and the like ? [-] AlanfromBigEasy Joystick control. Supposedly minimum 2,000 hours experience to be pilot on 3 person team. Alan [-] ricx They're remote operated, not really robots. Basically completely manually controlled, think joysticks. Although they may have automatic 'hover' and basic autopilot modes. Thanks a lot for the info, and is the feedback on their job only based on the video feeds, or do they have somekind of reconstructed 3D views based on position sensors ? With the disk cutting stuff, sometimes it caught the oil and the view was totally obscured, in that case they just "back out" and wait for the view to clear up ? aliilaali on June 3, 2010 - 3:07pm this is skilled skilled work each ROV is piloted remotely from the surface vessel using a cable by a 3 man crew 1 man is the pilot 1 man works the manipulator (the manipulator can have diff tools as attachments) 1 man is the navigator no there is no level of command as unscrew a bolt or do this.....every movement is controlled top side by the 3 man crew... there is no reconstructed views ...a few sensors are there but none is a reactive sensor ....all sensors provide feed to the operators who operate even the slightest function on the ROV's shelburn on June 3, 2010 - 4:13pm There is no exact rule for the number of hours an ROV pilot needs to have. The level of expertise is the determining factor. Maturity, knowledge of the work and safety attitude are just as important as stick skill. There is usually, but not always, a correlation between number of hours flying and skill. They are flying a 200 horsepower vehicle weighing 3 to 5 tons and worth $2 million. It is big and powerful enough to do considerable damage if mishandled. Unlike operating a piece of machinery on the surface these act more like a helicopter with pitch, yaw and vertical thrust as well as back and forth and sideways. The pilot has a large screen TV with a high definition picture (much better than the BP live feed) but no depth perception and usually a considerable distortion due to the wide angle lens. He also has other cameras showing in side screens that he can switch to his center screen if he wants. He has a sector scan sonar that can help him "see" farther and in black water, not enough to work but to keep from running into things. Most of the cameras have pan and tilt and zoom. Some of the lights are variable intensity and even may have their own pan and tilt. The manipulators are 5 or 7 function rate feed and require the same level of skill to operate as the ROV itself. For work like this it is all hand controlled. Parking in a set location is probably the only computer controlled function, but that allows the pilot to relax a bit. A number of years ago we were meeting with a bunch of Shell people and were explaining that soon we would have onshore live feeds from ROV video and might even have the capability to fly the ROV from onshore. One of the younger Shell engineers said he really liked the idea of flying the ROV around the wellhead from his office. I said that was great but he would have to sign a waiver taking all liability for any damage, the ROV and lost revenues if it was lost or damaged. A Shell VP in the room put a real quick stop to that idea.