Agenda Session

There are over 1000 work class, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) in operation today. Many of these vehicles lack basic autonomous capabilities to augment human operation, which can be a requirement for subsea inspection campaigns. Advanced ROV control systems, which have basic autonomous capabilities, still lack more advanced autonomy that could reduce the impact of operator training variance and/or operator fatigue. This presentation details the integration and initial field-testing results of ToolKITT on a small work-class ROV. ToolKITT is the autonomy and supervisory control software originally developed for Nauticus Robotics’ Aquanaut and other internal platforms. Integration focused on adapting ToolKITT’s modular software stack to enable semi-autonomous behaviors such as station-keeping, waypoint navigation, and supervised execution of pre-defined tasks. Discussion will focus on the software architecture modifications required for interfacing with existing ROV systems, the challenges of retrofitting autonomy functions in real-time control loops, and the verification strategy employed to ensure reliable performance in dynamic marine environments. Additionally, early sea trial results are discussed, along with lessons learned and their implications for broader adoption of autonomy software across heterogeneous subsea vehicle fleets. This work represents an incremental but foundational step toward scalable autonomy for subsea inspection and intervention, particularly in operational contexts where existing ROV infrastructure is prevalent, and fully autonomous vehicles may not yet be viable.