Deep-sea search and recovery: with and without operating an underwater vehicle

Abstract. Deep-sea search and recovery mainly refers to the search, recovery, and salvage of objects with high value that are lost on the deep-sea bottom. Deep-sea search and recovery objects include aircraft black boxes, underwater vehicles, and other types of objects. The recovery and salvage of objects involves accurately obtaining their underwater positions. Depending on whether or not the salvage object carries an acoustic beacon, two methods are available: onboard acoustic signal search and near-bottom sweep search and search. Once the underwater position of a salvage object is known, it can be recovered and salvaged with a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) and/or human-occupied vehicle (HOV). However, there are many difficulties with the practical application of existing deep-sea recovery systems that are based on the deep-sea operation of ROVs and HOVs. Based on the design idea and working mode of TV-grab in oceanography, this paper proposes a new type of deep-sea recovery system that does not rely on operating underwater vehicles and presents its recovery process. The new deep-sea recovery system combines underwater optical imaging, mechanical docking/grasping, acoustic imaging and positioning, and propeller operating to provide low-cost and rapid deep-sea recovery. Compared to the deep-sea recovery system with a ROV and/or HOV, the new deep-sea recovery system without an operating underwater vehicle described in this paper is proposed to be used, but not tested yet.