On December 10th 2018, OceanGate's Titan Manned Submersible reached a major milestone by successfully completing a 4,000m validation dive off the coast of the Bahamas.
This dive makes Titan the only commercially operated manned submersible capable of reaching this depth. With the completion of this dive, Titan is now poised to usher in a new era of increased access to the deep ocean for commercial exploration and research ventures, allowing up to five crew members to dive to the ocean depths for a myriad of tasks and operations.
Teledyne Marine, with its wide breadth of sensors and technology, has become a key partner and extensive technology provider to OceanGate for this innovative project. Teledyne Benthos acoustic modems have been designed into this vehicle to provide real-time “text" communications up to 6 km, allowing for the critical exchange of information between the vehicle's pilot and the surface throughout the dive. More recently, OceanGate has also enabled the modem's positioning capability through the use of Benthos DAT, allowing them to capture the position of the vehicle relative to the ship's surface.
A 6000m Teledyne RDI phased array Pioneer DVL, with XRT extended tracking, has also been installed to provide critical precision vehicle navigation capability at full depth, complimented by a Teledyne RDI Citadel CTD. Teledyne BlueView's 2D and 3D high-resolution imaging sonar systems are also installed. The 2D system is used to support navigation and obstacle avoidance while the 3D sonar provides detailed 3D point clouds of areas/objects of interest.
"We could not have completed this amazing project without the great products and customer support of the Teledyne Marine team", said Stockton Rush CEO of OceanGate.
With the completion of the recent validations dive, Titan is now preparing for its first major expedition, which will explore the Titanic in June 2019.
Story by Teledyne Marine
