The World's Biggest Undersea Robot

Roland Piquepaille writes "According to redOrbit.com, companies installing subsea cables for telecommunications companies and pipelines for the oil industry now have a new tool, the UT-1 Ultra Trencher which is the world's biggest subsea robot. This beauty weighs 60 tons (out of the water) and has a length of 7.8 meters, a width of 7.8 meters and a height of 5.6 meters. In fact, it has the dimensions of a small house but is more expensive, carrying a price tag of about £10 million. It can move at a speed of 2 to 3 knots under the sea. And it can trench pipelines with a 1-meter diameter in deep waters of up to 1,500 meters."

Comments

Re:Sadly no,

[K. S. Kyosuke]

But you can stil welcome our new giant robotic under(water)lord!

Pics

[bar-agent]

There's a picture on ZDNET's page.

Re:Pics

[BiggerIsBetter]

There's a picture on ZDNET's page. There's a picture on Roland's ZDNET page.

FTFY.

The image itself is here.

A picture

[The Ancients]

Since the linked article is a bit light on them:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=870

Spec sheet here (PDF 917KB)

Incorrect...

[msauve]

one definition of "robot" is

A machine or device that operates...by remote control .

Out of water?

[MasterC]

This beauty weighs 60 tons (out of the water)

Weight is the affect of gravity on a mass so it still weighs 60 tons but the water provides buoyancy so if you put it on a scale it won't read 60 tons. Granted the gravity will be different 1500 meters down but that wasn't the implication of "out of water".

Re:Out of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

1) It's spelled "effect". Why can't people figure this out?
2) That's what weight means... The mass is the same. If there's another force in play, the weight will change. It's not hard to understand, why do you have it wrong? Why do you think orbit is called "weightless"?

Re:Out of water?

[Aaron Isotton]

If we want to nitpick...a ton is *not* a unit of weight. It's a unit of mass. Mass != weight. The corresponding unit of weight is the "ton force".

Interesting, but how useful?

[TFer_Atvar]

Current undersea trenching is done using plows pulled by ships. I highly doubt that even this large robot is going to be able to match the power of a 60,000 ton ship pulling a plow. And considering the need to dig fairly deep below the seabed in order to protect from wayward anchors and fishing nets, I have to question the usefulness of this robot. It might be useful for smaller, brown-water cables where you need the protection but can't afford to hire a ship to plow the trench, but the big ocean-spanning cables probably won't use this robot.

Re:Interesting, but how useful?

[Anonymous Coward]

The trencher doesn't use a plow, no. It uses a pair of jet-cutters. A jet-cutter is a large pump connected to a very small nozzle that blasts the sea floor away with high pressure water. One jet-cutter on either side of the pipe or cable and the blast of water excavates the earth in between. Subsea cables are not usually buried more than a meter deep. The reason to bury them is to keep marine life and anchors off of them. Occasionally a cable may be set deeper at a crossing point or when coming into land near a harbor but that is the exception. The advantage a ROV has is that it can make sharp turns, a plow cannot. Also ROVs can bury an installed pipe or cable where a plow would certainly damage it. You are right though 1500m is far too shallow for most oceanic cable and some rigs. I'm betting that this is meant for oil rig pipe burial as oil rigs are ussually set in relativly shallow water ( 2000m ).