According to the WeChat official account "Sun Yat-sen University," on August 23, in the Zhongsha Sea area of the South China Sea, aboard the "Sun Yat-sen University" oceanographic research and training ship, the 6,000-meter-class deep-sea remotely operated vehicle (ROV) "Haiqin" successfully completed its first deep-sea trial, comprehensively verifying the functions and main performance indicators of the entire system.
The "Sun Yat-sen University" has officially entered the ranks of a few Chinese research vessels equipped with 6,000-meter-class deep-sea ROVs, providing strong technical support for Sun Yat-sen University's three-dimensional deep-sea scientific research.
Over the past days, the "Haiqin" ROV completed multiple dives, reaching a maximum depth of 4,140 meters, and conducted various scientific research experiments, real-time testing of all technical indicators and the system's stability and reliability. "Before conducting deep-sea trials, all components of this ROV had passed the 6,000-meter pressure test in land-based test environments. This sea trial was mainly for verification. According to conventional criteria, most 6,000-meter-class equipment can be considered to meet full-depth requirements after passing 4,000-meter-level actual sea trials." said Cui Yunlu, the leader of this voyage and the chief engineer of detection technology at the Ocean Science Research Center of Sun Yat-sen University.
This deep-sea scientific research ROV was developed for deep-sea exploration scenarios, supported by Sun Yat-sen University, and commissioned to Shanghai Jiao Tong University for development and production. It is installed on the hull of the "Sun Yat-sen University" research and training ship, enabling the research vessel to precisely locate and observe deep-sea scientific targets and collect samples. It can conduct long-term marine environmental surveys, biodiversity surveys, discovery of new species, and gene acquisition in the near-seabed area, thus promoting further progress in three-dimensional deep-sea scientific research.
This voyage was organized by Sun Yat-sen University, departing from Zhuhai on August 13 towards the target sea area in the South China Sea, with a planned duration of 25 days. It also executed the deep-sea scientific application mission of the full-ocean-depth autonomous remotely operated underwater vehicle "Haidou No. 1," conducting multi-disciplinary seafloor sampling.
In the near future, "Haiqin" and "Haidou No. 1" will continue to conduct experimental applications in multiple areas of the South China Sea, combining scientific needs such as marine meteorological drone observations, marine geological process detection, deep-sea biological ecology observation, and 30-meter gravity core sampling.
The "Sun Yat-sen University" is currently the largest designed displacement and most comprehensive oceanographic research and training ship in China. Since its commissioning, it has continuously focused on deep-sea exploration. As of July 2025, the ship has completed 23 research voyages (segments).
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7542122174853693952/
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