The unmanned robot can dive deeper than other equipment now at the site in the North Atlantic and has arms that can be remotely controlled to cut cables or perform other manoeuvres to release a stuck vessel, the machine’s operator said.
“Victor is not capable of lifting the submarine up on its own,” said Olivier Lefort, the head of naval operations at Ifremer, the state-run French ocean research institute which operates the robot. But he told Reuters the robot could help hook Titan to a ship with the capacity to lift it to the surface.
“Victor is able to do visual exploration with all the video equipment it has. It is also equipped with manipulating arms which could be used to extricate the sub, such as by sectioning cables or things that would be blocking it at the bottom,” he said.
Ifremer sent the Atalante ship with its robot at the request of the US navy. “This is the logic of seafarers. Our attitude was: We are close, we have to go,” Lefort said.
The robot is operated by a 25-strong crew. “We can work non-stop for up to 72 hours, we don’t need to stop at night,” he said.