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How would the ROV be controlled? Radio won't work. Long cables are problematic in cave environments, they snag, they get pulled by currents.
by timclark 10y ago
How would the ROV be controlled? Radio won't work. Long cables are problematic in cave environments, they snag, they get pulled by currents.
- adrianN 10y agoI wonder how much bandwidth a sonar link can provide over reasonable distance.
- amelius 10y agoThe ROV can drop an amplifying transceiver every so many meters?
- biswaroop 10y agoHow do divers communicate over long distances? If they don't, that's something worth solving in its own right. If they do, couldn't the ROV use the same thing?
- gaius 10y agoLight signals. You can say 3 things over any distance, which are "OK" (as a question or a response), "attention please" and "OMG OUT OF GAS NEED HELP IMMEDIATELY".
- Piskvorrr 10y agoGiven clear visibility, which gets rarer and rarer with distance - and even more so in constrained spaces, which are unlikely to be pure bedrock. Also, line of sight.
- Piskvorrr 10y agoThey don't. GL;HF.
- chongli 10y agoThere's no current down in these caves. The logical solution then is to drop a trail of breadcrumb beacons to relay your signal along, either via light or some radio band that penetrates water halfway decently.
- callahad 10y agoAre you certain? I've spent most of my dives in Florida springs, which can have flow rates above 100 cubic feet per second. You can basically get blown out of Devil's Eye at Ginnie Springs if you're not careful with your trim when ascending. The downside of still systems is that any silt you stir up can kill the visibility for hours / days, which would cause problems for light-based beacons.
- imglorp 10y agoThere are wire guided torpedoes and missiles that carry a spool with them and pay it out as they travel. Presumably this is a good thing because it can't be intercepted and jammed. Anyway, that missile carries 4200m of wire, which would be plenty for an ROV to explore most of the cave in the article before sending people, who could follow its wire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-71_TOW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-71_TOW