$10 Oil: Is Underwater Robotics an Answer?
A report of a workshop on autonomous underwater vehicles and other
underwater robotics, held June 1999

ISBN 0 906940 35 4, Ringbound, 1999
Order Reference C20, Price £25

This is a report of a workshop run by the Society for Underwater Technology in London on Thursday 17 June 1999. The aim of the day was to see whether underwater robotics was a cost-effective way forward for the underwater industry; pinpoint the areas of technology which needed to be developed and identify how this technology could be brought to market.

Presentations first set the economic scene, looked at the business case for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), and considered where underwater robotics could ideally help in survey and subsea engineering in the next decade and by 2020. Another set of presentations looked at what development work was going on now across a wide variety of disciplines. Break-out groups then looked at the potential and the problems in bringing the technology to market in the near future. They looked at the possibilities in the longer term, and tried to identify major stumbling blocks.
This report summarises and presents the outcome of this process.