Review of Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (AUV) Developments 
THE MARINE TECHNOLOGY SOCIETY [46,47] 
The Marine Technology Society (MTS) is dedicated to serving all people interested in the 
world's oceans. It is the only professional society committed to every sector of the ocean 
community: engineers, scientists, policymakers, educators, industry leaders, students, and 
concerned individuals. The MTS leads all its members to greater information and recognition. 
MTS is a network with a bounty of benefits. 
Since its founding in 1963, MTS has been working toward the following goals: 
e Disseminating marine science and technical knowledge 
e Promoting and supporting education for marine scientists, engineers, and technicians 
e Advancing the development of tools and procedures required to explore, study, and 
further the responsible and sustainable use of the oceans 
e Providing services that promote a broader understanding of the relevance of the marine 
sciences to other technologies, arts, and human affairs 
MTS’s goals are accomplished by a variety of means, including conferences, workshops, 
committee meetings, and publications. The activities are enhanced by the diversity of the MTS 
membership, which is comprised of students and professionals involved in business, 
government, and academia who share an interest in ocean and marine science, engineering, 
and policy. The combination of the organized activities and the dynamic membership makes 
MTS a valuable forum for a rich exchange of ideas. 
The MTS ROV Committee probably has one of the most dynamic pasts of any professional 
committee of the society. Its growth provides a good indication of the increasingly dynamic role 
of unmanned vehicles around the world. The parent MTS Undersea Vehicle Committee was 
essentially a manned submersible committee. Previous chairmen, such as R. McGrattan, John 
Pritzlaff, Joe Vadus, and R. Frank Busby nurtured it through its dynamic early days. Of 
particular note are the three MTS publications on manned submersible safety compiled by the 
Safety Standards Subcommittee led by Pritzlaff. These books were created by icons of the 
industry, although they did not reference unmanned vehicles, as the world was dominated by 
manned systems. 
Unmanned vehicles arrived on the scene, making deeper penetrations into the manned vehicle 
realm, and the ROV Subcommittee was created in 1978, chaired by Drew Michel, who was 
followed by Robert Wernli from 1981 through 1991. As ROVs emerged in importance during 
that period, and with the timely theme of "A Technology Whose Time Has Come," the ROV 
subcommittee created the first unmanned vehicle conference--ROV '83--held in San Diego, 
California. Between ROV '83 and '84 conferences, the subcommittee produced the book 
"Operational Guidelines for Remotely Operated Vehicles," a needed follow-on to the three 
Pritzlaff-developed books. The ROV conferences and the Guidelines were successful. Along 
with the growing strength of the subcommittee, the Undersea Vehicle Committee became the 
largest committee in MTS. ROV '85 was again held in San Diego, and between 1985 and 1986, 
the Undersea Vehicle Committee again doubled in size to nearly 225 members. Because of the 
strength of the ROV industry and the size of the ROV committee (nearly twice the size of the 
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