What is the horsepower of the ROV?
The use of a measure of horsepower to describe an ROV’s capability has been used in the offshore hydraulic workclass industry to try to provide a metric to compare one ROV against another. It has never been a very good measure even for systems using like power distribution methods (electo/hydraulic) since the efficiency of thrusters varies so much from one machine to the next. To try to compare ROV’s using brushless DC thrusters to Hydraulic ROV’s using horsepower is even less meaningful. The problem with using this method to compare is that it assumes similar efficiencies between the two. The fact is, using hydraulics to provide the means of driving thrusters is relatively in efficient. It is generally the preferred choice with work class vehicles (Shilling Robotics Quest ROV system being a notable exception and an example of an extremely efficient ROV) because using hydraulics is a more practical method of conduction energy in the rugged conditions of the offshore work environment. E
