SUMMARY 



PROBLEM 



Develop technology for conducting underwater inspection by means of 

 unmanned, free-swimming submersibles to provide a potentially cost-effective 

 means of inspecting undersea pipelines and structures. Underwater pipelines 

 and structural inspection tasks are of direct concern to the U.S. Geological 

 Survey's (USGS's) research-and-development program, whose major objective is 

 to develop technology for pollution prevention and safety for outer 

 continental shelf oil and gas operations. 



RESULTS 



A technology trans 

 unmanned, tethered vehi 

 sea pipeline and struct 

 unmanned, untethered ve 

 testbed submersible was 

 new technological conce 

 ing these concepts by d 

 vehicle (EAVE WEST) has 

 variety of concepts and 

 ments . 



fer program was established to transfer the Navy's 

 cle technology experience to the application of under- 

 ure inspection and to explore advanced concepts in 

 hide design technology. An unmanned, free-swimming 

 designed and developed to act both as a testbed for 

 pts in underwater inspection and as a means of verify- 

 emonstration on an operational platform. The resulting 

 proven to be feasible, flexible, and adaptable to a 

 technologies applicable to both USGS and Navy require- 



RECOMMENDATIONS 



1. Adapt a wide variety of artificial intelligence concepts for use on 

 the vehicle, and test and evaluate these concepts for both ^a^jy and USGS 

 applications. 



2. Use the vehicle as a testbed for advanced man-machine interface con- 

 cepts for undersea inspection and work applications. 



