Nereid Under Ice

WHOI engineer Casey Machado created this image of Nereid Under Ice (NUI), a hybrid remotely operated vehicle designed and built by researchers in WHOI’s Deep Submergence Laboratory. NUI operates in two modes: as a free-swimming autonomous underwater vehicle that can maneuver on preprogrammed paths, or as a remotely operated vehicle controlled in real time by a pilot via a hair-thin optical-fiber tether connected to a ship. In 2016, WHOI scientist Chris German and a team of engineers from WHOI and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory brought NUI within 200 miles of the North Pole to explore the ocean and seafloor beneath the ice-covered Arctic Ocean. (Illustration by Casey Machado, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)