I n January, faculty from the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, along with NOAA researchers from the Ocean Exploration Research (OER), participated in the Ocean Engineering course, “ROV Science and Applications” (ME/OE 7/895). This was a three-week course (January 2 -18, 2012) during UNH's J-Term and was organized by Prof. May-Win Thein from the Ocean Engineering Program. The purpose of the course was to cover the broad spectrum of underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) science and applications, as well as what is involved in designing and building ROVs for specific missions. Elizabeth (“Meme”) Lobecker and Dave Lovalvo from NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research discussed the rational for ROV operation, ROV systems, and missions. JHC/CCOM faculty members Thomas Weber, Yuri Rzhanov and Shachak Pe’eri from JHC/CCOM presented acoustical and optical sensors, acoustical positioning and large-scale mosaics. May-Win Thein and Firat Eren from the Ocean Engineering Program presented ROV dynamics and control. The UNH ROV Team presented ROV subsystems, design/engineering, fabrication, testing, and the Annual MATE International ROV Competition.

The course was a success with 13 students in the first class (10 junior/senior/grad MEs, 1 ECE grad student and 2 CCOM grad students). Although the majority of the students were engineers, the target students for this course are science and engineering seniors and graduate students. In addition to frontal presentations, the students participated in practical ROV experiments. The students also participated in a group capstone project involving ROV mission planning, scheduling, budgeting, participating in acoustical and optical experiments, and designing an ROV system. The second class for the ROV Science and Applications course is expected to take place again in the 2014 January term.