SolidWorks Success at All Oceans

All Oceans Engineering Ltd – Creators of the world’s smallest and most successful Micro ROV.

Brian Abel, Owner and Managing Director of All Oceans Engineering Ltd, reveals: “The key to achieving our design goals was using SolidWorks. Even after thirty years’ engineering practice we were pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed utilising its design methods.”

The project specification originated from the British Government: to create a Micro ROV capable of passing through an 8” diameter hole, in order to survey a sunken trawler, lost in suspicious circumstances.

Critical to the success of any ROV is its propulsion and control. However, no commercially available designs for thrusters and motors were suitable due to the miniature envelope permitted. The design team turned to a SolidWorks contractor to enable them to visualise and measure in 3D their unique impeller design, to be mounted externally on the ROV. The goal: maximum efficiency and equal thrust in forward and reverse modes. 

“With traditional drafting and 2D AutoCad systems we simply could not have achieved the detailed design visualisation required and building a prototype from 2D drawings would have been expensive, if not impossible. With SolidWorks, the team simply sent the 3D model electronically to a rapid prototyping company - and two days and fifty pounds later we had a prototype fit to test!”

SolidWorks was also used to orchestrate all the operating components required for a sophisticated, miniature ROV without clashing. Being able to check such detail on screen was invaluable. 

All Oceans Engineering have now purchased their own SolidWorks seat from NT CADCAM. Abel says, “SolidWorks is intuitive to use - it’s a designers tool - superseding traditional and AutoCad drafting systems. SolidWorks is enabling us to improve both our designs and customer services.”