Woods Hole Marine Systems, Inc. PO Box 164 Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543   USA 508/548-6665   fx: 508/540-1036 www.whmsi.com

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WHMSI is an oceanographic engineering service company. We specialize in the development and deployment of unmanned, teleoperated underwater vehicles and associated equipment. 

Our primary client for the last few years has been Robert Ballard's Institute for Exploration.  We are designing and building a suite of underwater vehicles for search and investigation, particularly in support of archaeology. ARGUS is a towsled that supports video and still cameras and HMI lighting.  ARGUS can operate independently or as a partner for an ROV.  We built a small Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV), Little Hercules (shown below) in early 2000, with a 3000 meter depth rating and capable of carrying a large High Definition camera. We operated these first two vehicles on IFE expeditions to the Black Sea (September 2000) and Pearl Harbor (November 2000).

During 2001 we developed and fielded a sidescan sonar survey system, ECHO. We built and fielded a shallow water ROV, Orpheus, to provide interactive inter-coastal video experiences from NOAA's National Marine Sanctuaries.

During 2003 we completed a larger ROV, HERCULES (shown above), which we used with IFE during the summer of 2003 for archaeological excavation of ancient shipwrecks in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. 

We have also worked with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and IFREMER (the French national oceans agency and home to the VICTOR ROV).

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Jim Newman's personal web page

Links to related Organizations:

Institute for Exploration
University of Rhode Island GSO
MIT Deep Water Archaeology Group
The Marine Technology Society
NOAA/National Marine Sanctuary Program
NOAA/Office of Ocean Exploration
National Geographic
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)

Underwater Vehicle Links:

Automomous Underwater Systems Institute
MBARI (home of Ventana and Tiburon)
WHOI Deep Submergence Lab (home of JASON and ABE)
WHOI Oceanographic Systems Lab (home of REMUS)

Some North American commercial builders of underwater vehicles:

Benthos
Deep Sea Systems International
International Submarine Engineering (ISE)
Deep Ocean Engineering
Bluefin Robotics
Hydroid
Webb Research Corp

Links to local stuff:

Marine and Oceanographic Technology Network (MOTN)
Cape Cod Technology Council
Woods Hole Business Association

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Revised  22september2005