Sea Trial Results of ROV “ABISMO” for Deep Sea Inspection and Sampling

Abstract

JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology) has been developing the deep sea ROV ABISMO (Automatic Bottom Inspection and Sampling Mobile) having the capability to dive to the deepest sea. The purposes of ABISMO are to inspect on the seabed in the deep sea and to obtain sediment samples from there. ABISMO consists of a launcher and a vehicle which is launched from the launcher and surveys on the seabed to determine the place for sampling. Core sampling system, which is exchangeable with a gravity piston type or a grab type, is equipped in the launcher. The both of the launcher and the vehicle have cameras to observe. One of the features of ABISMO is that the vehicle has crawlers in addition to thrusters in order to advance mobility. ABISMO is operated with the support ship KAIREI and dived by means of its onboard equipment including a primary cable. We conducted sea trials in January and September 2007 at the areas with the water depths up to 1,300m in Sagami Bay as primary function tests. And we conducted the third sea trial at Izu-Ogasawara trench in December 2007 and made the successful results of diving to the depths up to 9707 m and obtaining a sediment sample from the seabed in 9760 m water depth. This paper describes the features and the outline of ABISMO as well as the sea trial results.