Argo II, ROV-Remote Operating Vehicle   Argo II is a towed imaging and mapping vehicle, carries video cameras, 35-mm and electronic still cameras, and several different acoustic sensors. It can be operated around the clock as deep as 20,000 feet (6,000 meters), sending acoustic and video signals via fiber-optic cable to a shipboard control center, where five technicians fly the vehicle, record data, and monitor equipment. The resulting suite of data, which may include 100,000 still images and 200 gigabytes of information, requires many months of analysis following the cruise. A great deal of oceanographic research depends upon instruments that are lowered into the water to perform various tasks. The most common, known as a CTD, makes conductivity (for salinity readings), temperature, and depth measurements that are continuously displayed in the ship laboratory. Scientists can electronically trigger accompanying water sampling bottles when the readout indicates the conditions are of interest to their work. Argo II is a near-bottom towed vehicle-towed at altitudes of 3 to15 m above the seafloor, utilizing a fiber optic tether to downlink power and controls to various subsystems and data sensors and uplink digital data in both image format and as data-streams. Back to History Index Image Country Year Description Turks and Caicos Is. 1996 1989.Robot Argo found the dreadnought Bismarck sunk in 1941 in WW-II (ROV)