New Robotic Tools for Deep Sea Archaeology: Enabling Safe Remote Manipulation of Centuries Old Artifacts

Deep-water wrecks are remarkably well preserved, protected from negative environmental factors (storms, strong currents, high temperatures), naval shipworm, rapid oxidation and, of course, all but the most determined of looters. Over the last couple of decades industrial fishing has started threatening this valuable cultural heritage, even in depths of more than 1000 meters. Scarce fish reserves are forcing trawlers to work in deeper water and, when a trawl line comes up against a wreck, the result is the destruction of an entire archaeological site. Faced with this alarming trend we urgently need to develop new methods for exploring and excavating deep-sea wrecks so we can take measures to either protect them or do the archeology before any irreparable damage occurs. As no off-the-shelf technology is well suited to handle fragile underwater archaeological artifacts, we aim at developing new robotic methods and technologies to allow archaeologists to remotely excavate deep sea shipwrecks. Ocean One is the first remotely operated robotic diver providing its pilot a remote sense of touch and an ability to operate in compliance with archaeological requirements. This project aims at deploying Ocean One on deep ancient shipwrecks (-150m to -500m) to evaluate and refine its capabilities for archaeological exploration.