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Autonomous vehicles
Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are programmable robots that function independently from operator input. For the purposes of the oil and gas industry, AUVs are primarily used to survey seafloors before subsea infrastructures are built, to build subsea infrastructures and pipelines, and to survey pipelines after completion. AUVs can provide a less costly and invasive alternative to traditional surveying methods.
History
Torpedoes are technically the first AUVs, and their history can be traced back to submarines (Ref 1). The first submarine, The Turtle, was created in 1775 in Saybrook, Connecticut, by brothers David and Ezra Bushnell. One person could fit inside of the wooden, hand-and-foot-operated vehicle (not fully submersible as it floated on the surface in even the roughest waters) and the air supply lasted for 30 minutes. Although the Turtle was the first submarine to be involved in a naval battle, in New York Harbor in 1776, it was not until 1879 that the world’s first “practical powered” submarine was built by J.B. Cochran.
It was not, however, until the 1970s that AUVs became widely used and it took about 30 years for them to be introduced into the oil and gas industry. (Ref 2)
Applications
Ocean floor mapping
Building infrastructure and pipelines
Surveying pipelines
Repairs
Hurricane rating
Benefits
References
Noteworthy papers in OnePetro
External links
==See also==