Robots serve underwater studies

Underwater robots, nearly 80 percent of which are produced in Türkiye, are used for marine archaeology, by the coast guard and in natural gas and oil exploration works.

While the giant robots are used in oil and natural gas exploration works on Fatih, Kanuni and Abdülhamid Han ships, especially in the Mediterranean, smaller robots are used in underwater archaeology imaging and excavation studies, as well as underwater studies of the Coast Guard Command and maritime police.

A model application study has been recently carried out with two robots, named Demre and Finike, which are used in the marine archeology research studies of Akdeniz University. The undersea depths were examined with robots lowered into the Mediterranean in the Üç Adalar region off Kemer.

Bertan Tezcan, general manager of the company that produces the robots, stated that 70-80 percent of these devices are of domestic production.

"These are unmanned submarine vehicles of different sizes. We make different types of robots, from small sizes to 100 meters, weighing from 15-20 kilograms to 3-4 tons, and capable of diving to a depth of 2,000 meters. Their areas of use are archaeological and geological research, universities, search and minor rescue activities. We also make large robots that work at a depth of 2,000-3,000 meters. We made small robots for the Coast Guard and maritime police. The big ones are used by Turkish Petroleum. Currently, there are big robots on the Fatih, Kanuni and Abdulhamid Han ships. They work 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 2,200 meters. Their main duty is to be responsible for the security and maintenance of everything within 2,200 meters. There are pilots above the water, they remove them from water every eight to nine days, maintain them...