Deploying Underwater Sensors Safe-Net in Offshore Drilling Operations Surrounding Areas Using Remote Operated Vehicles Caraivan Mitruț Corneliu*. Dache Valentin.** Sgârciu Valentin*** * University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania, (Tel: 004-0744-372016; e-mail: caraivanmitrut@gmail.com) ** University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania, (Tel: 004-0765-271050; e-mail: valisor02@yahoo.com) *** University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania, (Tel: 004-021-4029310; e-mail: vsgarciu@aii.pub.ro) Abstract: This article presents an overview of the challenges and application possibilities of deploying underwater sensor networks nearby oil rigs drilling operations areas and offshore construction sites surroundings using Remote Operated Vehicles (ROVs). We have started to develop a simulation scenario using a VMAX PerrySlingsby ROV full-up simulator in order to detect and solve any possible problems that may occur. Keywords: remote operated vehicle, ROV, simulation, image modelling, underwater sensors, communication networks, tracking applications, water pollution. 1. INTRODUCTION The natural disaster following the explosion of BP Deepwater Horizon offshore oil-drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico has risen questions more than ever about the safety of mankind’s offshore oil-quests. For three months in 2010 almost 5 million barrels of crude oil formed the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of petroleum industry. This fact along with the more and more often necessity of underwater instrumentation systems in offshore oil-drilling industry, nearby well-heads and well control operations issued the idea of deploying multi-purpose underwater sensor networks along-side with oil companies’ offshore operations. Two- thirds of the surface of Earth is covered by water and as history proved it, there is a constantly increasing number of ideas to use this space. One of the most recent is perhaps transferring entire buildings of servers to the offshore environment - Google’s Data-Centers, Internet (2011a), which produce a heat footprint clearly visible even from satellites, which would be cooled by the ocean’s seawater and it’s electrical needs would be satisfied by Pelamis Wave Energy Converter units (manufacturer of a unique system to generate renewable electricity from ocean waves), Internet (2011b). Underwater sensor networks are going to be in the nearby future the background infrastructure for applications which will enable pollution monitoring, geological prospections and oceanographic data collection, disaster prevention – including earthquakes warnings in advance or tsunami detection – moreover helping offshore exploration through visual aids (underwater webcams) or assisting navigation. The ability to have small devices physically distributed near offshore oil- fields’ operations brings new opportunities to observe and monitor micro-habitats, Cerpa et al. (2001), structural monitoring, Whang et al. (2004), or wide-area environmental systems, Steere et al. (2000). Multiple Unmanned or Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (UUVs, AUVs), equipped with underwater sensors, will also find application in exploration of natural undersea resources and gathering of scientific data in collaborative monitoring missions. To make these applications viable, there is a need to enable underwater communications among underwater devices. Ocean Sampling Networks have been experimented in the Monterey Bay area, where networks of sensors and AUVs, such as the Odyssey-class AUVs, performed synoptic, cooperative adaptive sampling of the 3D coastal ocean environment, Melodia et al. (2004). The scope of this research of current developments in underwater sensor networks is to determine the most efficient way of deploying the “safe-nets” around drilling and offshore operations areas using Remote Operated Vehicles (ROVs), firstly in the Black Sea Area. Furthermore, the study is trying to show the collateral benefits of deploying such underwater sensor networks in order to develop a global “water-net”, which could be an extension of the Internet on land, allowing information to be transmitted from buoy to buoy in an access- point like system. Of course, there are going to be considerable less kilobytes of data to be sent and received, but the main advantages would be in favor of disaster prevention – early warning systems (earthquake and plate movements, tsunami, pollution, so on and so forth). While sensor-net systems are beginning to be fielded in applications today on land, underwater operations remain quite limited by comparison. 2. REMOTE OPERATED VEHICLES A remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is a non-autonomous underwater robot. They are commonly used in deep-water industries such as offshore hydrocarbon extraction. A ROV may sometimes be called a remotely operated underwater vehicle to distinguish it from remote control vehicles Proceedings of the 14th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing Bucharest, Romania, May 23-25, 2012 978-3-902661-98-2/12/$20.00 © 2012 IFAC 871 10.3182/20120523-3-RO-2023.00404