Development of a Design Baseline for Remotely Controlled Underwater Work Systems

The Work Systems Package (WSP), following two years of at-sea testing and evaluation, has completed an extensive laboratory time-motion analysis. This analysis, designed to simulate remote operation, provided a controlled evaluation of the system. Instrumentation was installed to provide time-motion and power consumption data on system components. The work tasks were divided into numerous subtasks and behavior motions which would be representative of the WSP´s diverse capabilities. A computer analysis was performed on the data to provide a quantitative description of the WSP, its capabilities and the parameters effecting them. Thus, the effect of system modifications on mission time and power requirements can be easily simulated to assist the designer in system optimization. The operational evaluation of the WSP has, for the first time, provided a quantitative data base on which to base future underwater work system designs.