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Underwater robots have had a significant contribution in the inspection, maintenance and repair of underwater structures related to the power and oil industry. Underwater robots have a big potential application in Mexico due to, the two federal Mexican companies related with the power and oil are in constant expansion. CIDESI is working in two projects (Shadow water ROV and Deep water ROV) related to visual inspection ROVs applied to the power and oil industries. Visual inspection is the essential application for a ROV, and it is used into the tasks; underwater structure inspection (dams included), underwater oil production system inspection and underwater pipeline inspection. This applied research paper firstly gives a brief instruction of the two Mexican companies related with the power and oil. Subsequently a description of the objectives and main characteristics of the developed hallow and deep water ROVs are presented and finally a general conclusions and future work is listed.

This paper describes both the design and technical integration of a deep water ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) that is able to employ visual inspection in deep water, as well as to take samples with an underwater arm. Visual inspection is the essential application for a ROV, which is useful for; underwater structure inspection, underwater oil production systems inspection and underwater pipeline inspection. This paper mainly describes the ROV design, and explains in general manner other elements; such as the SCU, LARS and TMS. It is important to mention that the design phase is complete and it was financed by PEMEX (Federal Mexican Oil Company). The project has stalled, since we are waiting for the financial support from PEMEX for the system construction. A future objective is the design and construction of Work-Class ROVs, which can be used to perform PEMEX specific tasks.