Recent R&D activities on underwater vehicles in Korea for ocean exploration and observation

This paper presents the recent R&D activities on underwater vehicles in Korea. A highly maneuverable high speed ROV has been developed for surveying the strong tidal area. Characteristics of the vehicle are discussed in view of flow effect and operation at strong currents. This paper introduces a high speed AUV HW200 and discusses its operational test at high speed conditions. This paper present a seabed walking robot CR200 and its activities, which was conducted to capture a scanning image of the sunken ferry Sewol and to identify the seabed objects last year. A hovering-type UUV Cyclops with acoustic image recognition is introduced as well. Finally this paper presents a plan for the development of a manned submersible in Korea.