Readying REMUS

Brennan Phillips (right) and Greg Packard (background) work on two Remote Environmental Monitoring UnitS — or REMUS vehicles — in the Ocean Systems Laboratory at WHOI. Three REMUS 6000 vehicles will be utilized in the search for the wreckage of Air France Flight 447. The vehicles will use side scan sonar to map the ocean floor in long overlapping lanes, known as “mowing the lawn.” After the data from large-scale surveys are analyzed and smaller fields of interest are identified, the REMUS 6000s will gather more detailed, up-close images using high-resolution cameras.
(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)