The future of drones is not only about flying high, but also going deep. Companies that make underwater vehicles, technically called remote operated vehicle (ROV), are breaking into the consumer market.

After 20 years of competing in land-based robotics competitions, students at the Limestone Career Technical Center are taking their skills beneath the waves. For the first time, the school will compete in an underwater robotics competition to take place next month at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. The competition is representative of the growing presence of robotics in industrial applications and for scientific research.

Orion Marine, a specialty construction company, has secured a contract of approximately $11 million. According to the company, its Heavy Civil Marine Construction segment was recently awarded a contract by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to construct a cofferdam around the perimeter of the USS North Carolina Battleship, to help facilitate the future repair of the ship’s hull.

Global energy demand is expected to rise by as much as 50 percent over the next 25 years. This combined with depletion of existing fossil fuel reserves will mean extensive exploration and production activities by the offshore oil and gas industry in the years to come. 75 percent of this increased requirement is expected to come from the developing world.

Aker Solutions secured a global framework agreement to deliver engineering and project management services at BP-operated subsea oil and gas fields. The contract has a fixed period of five years and may be extended by two years. It covers subsea engineering services, asset integrity management and operations support.

The ADCI is currently holding a 60 Day Comment Period (15 March – 15 May 2016) on the proposed ADCI Audit Initiative.  The Association is soliciting input on the initiative, and will then examine the comments to determine the best path forward to meet the needs of industry, the membership, and the mission of the ADCI.

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Bourbon announced that the two crew members abducted on board the Bourbon Liberty 251 off the coast of Nigeria on February 23, have been released and are in good health. The workers of Russian and Nigerian nationality had been aboard the Bourbon Liberty 251 vessel, off the coast of Nigeria when they were abducted on February 23.

In 2015, more than 2 million cargo containers moved through the Port of Oakland. After those containers are offloaded from cargo ships, they are stacked onto large decks until they can be loaded onto trucks, trains or ships and shipped out. Those decks are essentially massive piers, built over water on thousands of vertical concrete supports called piles. These piles — approximately 28,000 of them — are the critical unseen system that supports all cargo activities at the port.

Before divers start their work underwater, the Association of Diving Contractors International recommends a preemptive medical exam. The exams don’t stop there, though: the association also requires divers to undergo regular exams throughout their careers. This is especially important when commercial divers returns to work after a serious illness has kept them out of commission.

A morning "hurrah swim" before the tourists arrive is a ritual among lifeguards at Presque Isle State Park. In 2013, as lifeguard Darren Redding chased a fish underwater, he saw the remains of a long-lost vessel.

The discovery of a century-old shipwreck off the San Francisco coast has resolved one of the U.S. Navy's greatest maritime mysteries. And for Violet Pammer, it resolved the question of what happened to her Uncle Harvey.

Fraunhofer Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation (IOSB) in Germany has tested the DeDaVe, a new autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), at the PLOCAN (Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands) test site. A team of technicians from Germany carried out the work at PLOCAN’s land-based facilities and in its test site off the coast of Telde, Spain.

UK division of Kongsberg Maritime, has expanded its subsea Aberdeen-based rental pool, with the addition of its new MUNIN autonomous underwater vehicle. MUNIN is designed to collect high resolution payload data, geo-referenced by a survey grade positioning system.

As far as locales go, the bottom of the ocean is a particularly exasperating place to explore. Anyone or anything you send down there has to contend with the dark, with thousands of pounds of pressure on every square inch, with the inability to replenish fuel supplies without returning to the mother ship.