Biologists of the Alfred Wegener Institute have used the institute’s new ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) for the first time during an expeditions into the fjords at the Chilean west coast.
The underwater robot worked perfectly and made exciting video records of cold-water corals, for instance in the Comau Fjord.
Filming is the big strength of the new ROV. Is possesses a videosystem that consists of two HD cameras.
They can be positioned in such a way that scientists can film in 3-D. Afterwards they apply a certain kind of software to make 3-D-reconstructions of the coral gardens.
With the help of these reconstructions the biologist are able to count the number of corals in a certain range and to measure the distance between two organisms on a computer screen, where usually no measuring unit is available.
Before starting its first mission the ROV was named “Matilde” – after the third wife of Pablo Neruda, the Nobel award winning Chilean poet.
[mappress] Subsea World News Staff , March 22, 2012; Image: Alfred Wegener Institute