As part of the evolution plan of the French Oceanographic Fleet, the Directory Steering Committee and the MESRI have confirmed in March 2018 to withdraw the usage of the submarine HOV Nautile in the medium term and to begin investigating of a “scenario with two deep-sea ROVs”, including the revamping and modernizing of the ROV Victor6000. The outcomes are subject to the positive accreditation by the Direction Steering Committee of the initial (Phase 0) conclusions to be carried out by the Fleet Directorate, so as to assess its technical and budgetary feasibility.

The technical Phase 0 of this project had to take into consideration the current technological advances (marine instrumentation or in other domains) or early-stage developments, as well as the emergence of new needs. The approach should provide a project calendar enabling still the availability of two deep-sea operational vehicles to the scientific community and providing the time necessary to acquire the financial support to build the new vehicle.

The outcomes of the technical Phase 0 have been presented in December 2018 to the FOF – CS, then to the Direction Steering Committee. Following the positive evaluation by the FOF – CS, the Direction Steering Committee decided to launch the Phase 1 aiming at a preliminary definition with the following objectives:

● Definition of the scientific needs and requirements associated with the potential scenario of

“working with 2 deep-sea ROVs”;

● Definition of the technical functionalities derived from the scientific requirements;

● Writing of a technical report of the system according to the definition of the scientific need;

● This will be done in close link to the revamping and modernizing stages of the ROV Victor6000.

The final report will provide the grounds for the technological development of a new deep-sea ROV combined with the modernization of the ROV Victor6000, while gathering, scrutinizing and complying with the scientific needs.