ROV Introduction

Recently I have been busy working on an ROV (Remote Operated Vehicle), which is basically an underwater tethered robot. I had the idea around the time of the inception of our UAV project, but with little knowledge about submarines and a fair knowledge of aircraft we decided to go for the UAV. The idea has therefore been around for a while - but the motivation was somewhat lacking - until talking to my project supervisor the idea of running a ROV project for 2008 was raised. My role would be the mechanical design and supervisory for the electronics - supervising a team of final year students who would do the control and communications systems.
I figured this was more than enough motivation to start work on the ROV and so over the next little while the mechanical design steps and some ideas about how the electrics will work will be found here.
One background source I found particularly helpful was "Build Your Own Underwater Robot and Other Wet Projects by Bohm, Harry" which provided some very useful background info and some basic design and control ideas. Having adapted some of these my design is for a neutrally buoyant ROV, with two rear bilge pumps (converted to drive propellers for proportional control) and two angled bilge pumps to provide reversing, surfacing and diving motions.
The basic framework is built from 15mm PVC piping (shown in the picture).