Update on Ifremer technological developments and operational feedbacks with underwater systems
This paper reports on the status of Ifremer Underwater systems. It will focus on recent innovations, improvements and operational references of the remotely operated vehicle “Victor 6000”, of the autonomous underwater vehicles “AsterX” and “IdefX”, of the new “Sysif” seismic tool and some hints about RanD in the domain of Advanced Intervention AUVs.
EXtreme ecosystem studies in the deep OCEan : Technological Developments
EXOCET/D was a three-year project that started in 2004 and that was funded by the European Commission (STREP, FP6-GOCE-CT-2003-505342). The general objective of this project was to develop, implement and test specific technologies aimed at exploring, describing and quantifying biodiversity in deep-sea fragmented habitats as well as at identifying links between community structure and environmental dynamics. The MoMARETO cruise, held during the summer 2006, was the main demonstration action of EXOCET/D. After nearly 3 years of development, the project was a real success with the at sea trial and validation of 13 instrument prototypes developed for the study of deep-sea extreme habitats. These instruments were dedicated to quantitative imaging, in situ measurements, faunal sampling and in vivo experiments.
A real-time dive on active hydrothermal vents
The Momareto cruise was held from August 6 to September 6, 2006 on the new French oceanographic vessel Pourquoi pas. The ROV Victor 6000 visited three vent fields, ranging from 850 m to 2300 m, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The scientific objective of the cruise was to study the spatial and temporal dynamics of hydrothermal communities colonizing these active vent sites. Aside scientific and technological objectives, one of the major goals of this cruise was to share the excitement of our science with the public. For this, the results of the project were shared through different media. The most challenging and exciting communication event remains the realtime transmission of images acquired by the ROV Victor at 1700 m depth to a 250 person audience on land.