Key points
- Jake Russell, CEO of Orpheus Ocean, discusses the Orpheus AUV, an autonomous underwater vehicle developed at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in collaboration with NASA Jet Propulsion Lab for deep-sea surveying and sampling.
- A fleet of five Orpheus AUVs achieves roughly three times more data collection than a single ROV while operating at about one-quarter the operational cost and less than one-fifth the capital cost.
- The Orpheus AUV offers 8-12 hours of endurance on the seafloor, can collect up to 12 sediment cores per dive, and captures high-resolution video and photography.
- A validation mission in Alaska reached depths of nearly 5,000 meters, covered about 11,000 meters of transect, and operated on the seafloor for dozens of hours.
