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Jan 4, 2015 | By Anthony

Anyone that's seen James Cameron's The Abyss and marveled at the creatures living in the depths of our oceans can't help but appreciate the danger associated with deep underwater exploration. The dangerous pressures at such depths make human exploration, if not impossible, terribly dangerous and expensive. Exploring deeper ocean environments grows more feasible utilizing ROVs (remote operated explorers), and the cost of such ROVs has dropped with the utilization of 3D printing technology.

For Corey Jaskloski, president of Hydro Technologies, making deep ocean exploration cheaper and more accessible will open up a new opportunities of exploring ancient history. We will be able to study archeological sites long since flooded with the shifting of continents and water masses. He believes cheaper UROVS (Underwater Remote Operated Vehicles) can help us discover new species. He also believes they will improve safety surrounding study of underwater caves, an activity that has already claimed many divers' lives.

Working with Solid Concepts, an additive manufacturing company, and Colorado State University (CSU), Jaskloski and his team developed NEMO (Nautical Exploratory Modular Observer), a UROV that shows much promise.

"There are great archeological teams unable to afford current UROVs," Jaskolski says. "They can barely afford to travel out to these places for exploration. If we can make UROVs readily available, cheap, portable and easily replicable – and get them in the hands of the right people – then we will be able to make amazing discoveries in our lifetime."

NEMO's body used 3D printing Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) laying thermoplastic ABS layer upon layer. Its control surface used a Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) process, where a CO2 laser sinters a bed of powdered nylon layer upon layer. The clear nose cones for both ends of the UROV were made using Stereo-lithography (SLA) master pattern from which a silicone mold was made to cast them from urethane. The process allowed each thread to be cast directly into the nose cones, eliminating further machining processes. The process also used a soft tool, which significantly cut down on manufacturing costs.

“Because of additive manufacturing abilities, this vehicle looks better than any other vehicle I’ve seen,” said Jaskolski.

All of the vehicle's thrusters and servos are mounted to the outer shield. The thrusters and servos work similarly to what one would experience with a remote controlled airplane. However, NEMO works under water, not in the air, so the UROV requires more power.

This power requirement is provided by Jaskloski's pressure tolerant Lithium Polymer battery, which he first developed for use in "Ghosts of the Abyss," the documentary based on the making of Cameron's film, "The Abyss."

"Old UROVs powered from the surface required 120-m-long cables half an inch in diameter and composed of solid steel - a tremendous amount of weight," said Michael Hake, the lead engineer for Jaskloski's team.

NEMO is still tethered to the surface, but it's only tethered with fiber optic cable for communications. This weight savings offers increased efficiency and agility.

Hake also emphasizes the ease of assembly of the UROV: "It's a nice, easy-to-assemble package. The servos and thrusters all connect directly to NEMO's outer shell, significantly decreasing part and manual assembly count."

Unlike traditional UROVs, NEMO can be designed, 3D printed and ready to go in a matter of weeks.

"If everything had to be made by machining or molding without freedom to design one-off or two-offs, this would not have been possible," said Jaskolski. "It would have turned into months of machining and hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Plans are for NEMO to be tested soon in the Mountain Lakes of Colorado where elevation and temperature make decompression sickness a definite risk. NEMO can collect samples from and visually document the environments it explores. Analytic testing suggests NEMO can withstand pressures at depths of 190 m, but the risk to electrical equipment prohibits diving that deeply. While most scuba divers can comfortably dive 40 m, NEMO will withstand a 60 m depth, a depth that most master scuba divers avoid.

 

Posted in 3D Printing Applications

 

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OpenROV wrote at 1/5/2015 11:06:42 PM:

People interested in this should check out OpenRov, you could build something like this (or better) for 500$ or buy a kit for 899$

norc wrote at 1/5/2015 11:03:20 PM:

http://store.openrov.com/collections/openrov/products/openrov-v2-7-kit 899$for a kit, or you choulders print and Source some parts yourself for almost half since it's open source.

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