Article

Deep Rover

Published Online February 7, 2006

Last Edited December 16, 2013

A one-man submersible capable of working 4-6 hours under water to a depth of 914 m at speeds up to 1.5 knots, Deep Rover was designed by Graham Hawkes at San Leandro, Calif, and built by Can-Dive Services Ltd of Vancouver and in Dartmouth, NS, in 1984 to work in the offshore oil industry.

Deep Rover

A one-man submersible capable of working 4-6 hours under water to a depth of 914 m at speeds up to 1.5 knots, Deep Rover was designed by Graham Hawkes at San Leandro, Calif, and built by Can-Dive Services Ltd of Vancouver and in Dartmouth, NS, in 1984 to work in the offshore oil industry. Weighing 3266 kg, its acrylic hull gives the operator a 360° field of view. A pair of specially designed manipulator arms enables the operator to move or service equipment and even to sense the texture of objects. Somewhat like a helicopter, the submersible can operate moving freely, or it can be tethered to a surface platform such as an oil rig supply vessel. After the decline of offshore exploration in Canada in the mid-1980s, it was used mainly for basic science studies in the US.