Self-Management of ROV Umbilical Using Sliding Buoys and Stop

The umbilical of Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) has two main problems: it is subject to entanglement with obstacles or itself, and its shape is difficult to predict for the navigation. To address these issues, this article proposes a passive self-management of an ROV’s umbilical, suitable for underwater and seafloor exploration. By adding two buoys moving freely on the umbilical, the described method avoids self-entanglement of the cable by stretching it, and gives it a predictable shape. A fast time computational model of the cable is proposed to provide feedback to the operator. The buoys move on their own to keep the cable taut without a motorized system, making this method easy to adapt to existing ROVs with few constraints on their navigation. Simulations and experimentation in pool show the effectiveness of the method.