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for the Progressive Replacement of Man Underwater' (AGPRMU) is Chaired 

 by Sir Herman Bondi; Chief Scientist of the Department of Energy. 



The Advisory Group has the following terms of reference. To advise 

 the Chief Scientists of the Department of Energy on the R and D support 

 necessary to assist the development of the technology required for 

 underwater engineering to move towards the progressive replacement of 

 man underwater by remotely controlled systems . The Advisory Group 

 will formulate and oversee the implementation of a co-ordinated and 

 integrated program of R and D to make possible the achievement of the 

 objective of moving towards the eventual progressive replacement of 

 man underwater. A first task will be to determine a broad framework 

 for action which can then be presented to the OETB for ratification. 



Thereafter, it is intended that this should lead to the formulation 

 of detailed R and D proposals. It is clear that there will need to 

 be a significant amount of longer-term research, a large part of which 

 might have to be wholly funded by the Department. The Advisory Group's 

 help will be sought on the definition of such projects. 



Much of the technology relevant to the remit of the Advisory Group may 

 already exist within other branches of engineering science. Thus a 

 major function of the Group will be to bring about cross fertilization 

 with other engineering industries, in particular aerospace. In order 

 to facilitate this, membership of the group is drawn not only from 

 the offshore engineering industry, but from a wide range of organizations 

 in Government, Aerospace, the Academic World, etc. Practical input 

 from people with underwater experience is, of course, of prime importance. 



The Group first met in January, and has recently held its second meeting. 



It is, therefore, too early to comment on the strategy or work program 



that may emerge. It is possible only to speculate on areas where the 

 Group might concentrate activity. 



It is probable that vehicles will become increasingly specialized; 

 designed to perform single tasks or small ranges of tasks. A systems 

 design approach should, therefore, be adopted, analogous to that employed 

 in aerospace projects. However, a number of problem areas will be 

 common to many tasks; navigation, power and propulsion, data trans- 

 mission, the operator interface, and system reliability spring readily 

 to mind. 



The navigation problem may involve fixing the vehicle position accurately 

 in a geographic reference frame, or be restricted to determining position 

 relative to a ship or structure. For the latter purpose acoustic systems 

 have traditionally been used, but lately inertial navigation has begun 

 to make an impact. Acoustic systems suffer from the problem that 

 seawater is a variable medium, and pose problems of signal reflection. 

 Inertial navigation systems have been regarded as too expensive and 

 have operational difficulties arising from the need to update regularly. 

 There is a need to understand more fully the potential of both systems 



