This Football-Sized Robot Sub Handles Law Enforcement’s Underwater Beat

From inspecting cargo ships in NYC Harbor to searching for missing persons in South Texas, law enforcement is increasingly supplementing its human divers with these football-sized remote submersibles.

The VideoRay Pro 3 GTO is a tethered, remotely-controlled micro-submersible. The eight-pound machine can dive as far as 500 feet and move at up to 4.1 knots, thanks to its dual 100 mm horizontal thrusters. It’s sensor suite includes, among others, sonar imaging, GPS, water quality sensors, and metal thickness gauges. The Pro 3 GTO, which the NYPD employs also includes a grappling arm, wide-angle front-facing color camera illuminated with Dual 20W Halogen lamps, and an LED-lit HG black-and-white camera on the rear. The submersible is controlled remotely from a suitcase-sized control board.

The device is finding extensive use among in government agencies, like the US Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA, the ICE, and the US Coast Guard. Nearly 2,000 of the $31,000 machines are in use across the country—especially where conditions are too dangerous to prohibit human divers.

via This Football-Sized Robot Sub Handles Law Enforcement’s Underwater Beat.