The Mini Rover ROV was the world's first small, low cost

remotely operated underwater vehicle A remotely operated underwater vehicle (technically ROUV or just ROV) is a tethered underwater mobile device, commonly called ''underwater robot''. Definition This meaning is different from remote control vehicles operating on land or in the a ...

(ROV) when it was introduced in early 1983. After a demonstration to industry professionals, in the Spring of 1984, it made a significant entry to the remotely operated vehicle market. It is a self-propelled, tethered, free swimming vehicle that was designed and built by Chris Nicholson of Deep Sea Systems International, Inc. (DSSI). The Mini Rover ROV entered the ROV market at a price of $26,850 when the next lowest cost ROV was $100,000. Nicholson built the first Mini Rover ROV in his garage in Falmouth, MA. It was 26 inches long and weighed 55 pounds. It could be carried on airplanes as luggage. The Mini Rover ROV has been involved in many undersea expeditions including the 1989 3D filming of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald and the 1989 and 1990 Pearl Harbor Project with the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...

and National Geographic to survey the

USS Arizona Memorial The USS ''Arizona'' Memorial, at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, marks the resting place of 1,102 of the 1,177 sailors and Marines killed on during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and commemorates the events of that day. The ...

. In the 1989 James Cameron film,

The Abyss ''The Abyss'' is a 1989 American science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron and starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Michael Biehn. When an American submarine sinks in the Caribbean, a US search and recovery tea ...

, the Mini Rover MKII ROV is credited as "Little Geek". The size and portability of the Mini Rover ROV made it easily deployable for emergency situations anywhere in the world. On November 2, 1999, a Mini Rover ROV was on board the USNS Mohawk (T-ATF-170) at the scene of the October 31, 1999,

EgyptAir Flight 990 EgyptAir Flight 990 (MS990/MSR990) was a regularly scheduled flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Cairo International Airport, with a stop at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City. On October 31, 1999, the Boeing 767-3 ...

crash site to be used to identify target locations. Benthos, Inc. (

Teledyne Teledyne Technologies Incorporated is an American industrial conglomerate. It was founded in 1960, as Teledyne, Inc., by Henry Singleton and George Kozmetsky. From August 1996 to November 1999, Teledyne existed as part of the conglomerate All ...

Benthos) acquired exclusive designs, trademarks, marketing and manufacturing rights for the Mini Rover ROV from DSSI in 1987. Benthos had been manufacturing and servicing the Mini Rover ROV for DSSI since 1984.

References

{{Underwater diving, divsup Remotely operated underwater vehicles