A fine September evening brought members from the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Department and Geoff Cook from SeaView Systems to a local quarry for training on the Department’s newly launched BlueROV2 underwater search and rescue vehicle.  The hands-on training lasted several hours with ten of the county’s Search and Rescue (SAR) personnel who will be conducting SAR activities with the ROV.

Operations were monitored and conducted from their new custom outfitted 30ft dive trailer. During SAR operations, a wide-imaging sonar scan of the underwater area would be completed first and then the ROV would be deployed to investigate any area of interest detected by the sonar. The ROV can then provide detailed sonar and video imaging. Any items discovered can be retrieved with the gripper arm or can be held in place for divers to recover.

SeaView worked closely with the Sheriff’s department to make sure we tailored the perfect set of accessories and our proprietary value added features to ensure their vehicle would have capability for any contingency they might experience during deployment. Among the myriad options available, SeaView made the following upgrades to the BlueROV2 (in addition to baseline capabilities such as real-time HD video feed) specifically targeting Washtenaw Sheriff’s needs:

  • Newton Subsea Gripper arm for retrieving/holding objects
  • Water Linked DVL (Doppler Velocity Log) for station-keeping and dead-reckoning
  • Ping 360 sonar for imaging
  • Heavy configuration offering six degrees of freedom control and increased stability
  • Cobalt connectors for easy attachment/detachment of tools, sensors and thrusters
  • Wet-mateable connector molded to the tether and mating bulkhead installed onto the electronics enclosure

SeaView has provided customized ROV packages for multiple law enforcement agencies and can leverage this experience to provide an ideal solution for any search and rescue need.

Learn more about our line of BlueROV products and value added options HERE.

Contact SeaView Systems to find out how we can improve your search and rescue capabilities.