Oceaneering International began using atmospheric diving suits (ADS) in the mid 1970s with the JIM ADS. At that time there were only a handful of JIM suits in use or under construction. It was obvious that this technology would be an asset to Oceaneering's repertoire, with the exploration for oil exceeding the wet diving boundary.

During the latter 1970s further ADS developments produced the SAM suit, an aluminum fabricated body with a depth rating of 1,000 feet (300m), and the glass-reinforced plastic body (GRP) JIM with a depth rating of 2,000 feet (600m). By 1979, Oceaneering was operating 11 JIMs, two SAMs, and two GRP JIMs on ADS projects around the world.

During the late 1970s another ADS was being developed. Called the WASP, this design was also acquired by Oceaneering, this time for legal reasons, to become a part of its growing ADS fleet. The WASP differed from the JIM suit only in that it was a mid-water vehicle with thrusters and no legs, and that it was originally fitted with a poor copy of the type-4 arms since patented by Oceaneering. Oilfield work required an intervention that could fill the gap between the wet diver limit and the bottom capability of the JIM, and the mid-water ADS WASP was that vehicle.

WASP Series 1
The early WASPs, known as Series 1, were basic vehicles fitted with two horizontal thrusters, two vertical thrusters, an electrical control pod mounted in front and a small foam buoyancy block mounted to the rear. The early thrusters were fitted with stainless steel model-aircraft style props with what one can only describe as low thrust. Lighting was in the form of motor vehicle interior festoon 12 volt bulbs mounted within the horizontal thruster housing and subsequently filled with an inert oil to compensate for pressure. A variac was employed topside to supply power and adjust it if the need arose.

Commercial atmospheric diving was still in its infancy and the oil companies needed convincing that this was the way to go. The JIM suit, with its walking capability, required a firm base and oil companies were reluctant to provide walkways around wellheads or production manifolds. Thus, the JIM became a limited commodity and the WASP became the front runner.

WASP Series 2
By the early 1980s minor enhancements had been made to the WASP design. Two additional horizontal thrusters were added, and electronics and lighting were updated, producing a vehicle that could at least cope with some of the subsea tasks. These suits were subsequently referred to as WASP Series 2, but were still underpowered.

The greatest change came in 1981 when the WASP manufacturer, OSEL Group, introduced a boost thruster to their Mantis submersible to increase its lack of power. Following this success, Oceaneering embarked on a program to upgrade a number of the WASP suits by retrofitting the old pancake motors with these new 105vdc motors. Due to their size, only four motors could be fitted. At the same time, relay pods were replaced with contactor pods, additional buoyancy was added to cope with the increase in weight, and umbilicals were changed from 17mm to 22mm to cope with the additional power requirement.

These upgraded suits were referred to as WASP Series 2A and finally had sufficient power to meet the needs of most projects.

The Series 2A suits remain functional to this day, much the same as when they were first introduced 20 years ago. Minor modifications have taken place, but nothing to warrant a major specification change. Umbilical handling systems were enhanced to include a single module, dual-drum winch system, replacing the individual winch/control setup.

WASP Series 3
By the late 1990s, after 20 years in the business of oil production support and intervention, there arose a need to look at the capabilities of the ADS WASP and bring it into line with current day technology. In 1998 Oceaneering embarked on a program of change and a new upgraded WASP system was conceived. The new WASP would be referred to as the Series 3.

Technology learned in the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) field would and could be employed on the new WASP system. Thruster technology had advanced to a stage where they were now of acceptable size that could be easily adapted to the WASP, while keeping the overall package compact - a criteria that has become one of the WASP's major assets.

From the Series 2A WASPs, only the domes, upper bodies, body tubes, and lower domes were kept for the new design. In fact, the body tubes and lower domes are being used on the current test units, but will eventually be replaced when these suits are put to work.

The major change has been to move away from the system of four bang/bang thrusters, which are activated by a micro switch which gives either full thrust, half thrust, or nothing. The new system involved fitting five variable speed solid state control motors, with three horizontal in vector format. This format provides the WASP with lateral movement, something that it has not had in the past, and double the thrust capability in all directions. The thrusters also have an estimated maintenance-free operation time of 10,000 hours.

One of the difficult aspects of employing this system was the introduction of a foot-operated proportional controller. It was first thought that a small joystick would be sufficient to activate the thrusters, but after much discussion this idea was considered unacceptable. Operating a joystick with your feet while lying at 30 degrees and expecting the stick to return to center immediately after it was released soon became the underlying negative factor. Prototype potentiometer-based controllers were manufactured and during initial tank trials were found to provide the finite control required. Within one hour of fitting the new controllers, ADS operators were able to adjust their thinking to rolling a controller rather than repeatedly pushing an on/off switch.

A new dual-drum winch with enhanced specification 22mm umbilical equipped with fiber optic conductors supplies main power at 1500 vac. This higher line voltage provides for less voltage drop over the increased length umbilicals, now 3,700 feet on each drum. This fiber optic technology, new to ADS systems, already existed within Oceaneering's ROV systems so in-house experience assisted with this change. An onboard pan and tilt color camera is controlled and transmits data through the fiber optics. The WASP 3 is equipped to run a second color camera, should it be required for certain operations. A new lighting system provides over 1,250 Watts of output, from three 250 Watt and one 500 Watt white light source.

An instrument pod, mounted front-center, houses dual-frequency sonar, digital depth sensor, cathodic protection, Cygnus wall thickness gauge, battery monitoring, water temperature, depth, heading, turn counter, and control pod leak detection electronics. All data is transmitted through the fiber optic cable and displayed in real time within the topside dive control station on a standard IBM format computer system. There is a redundant system enabling data transmission through a single twisted pair.

The main electronic control pod has been mounted to the rear of the hull, encompassed by the now enlarged syntactic foam buoyancy blocks. This control pod takes the now reduced power from the front mounted transformer pod and distributes it around the suit and through the hull penetrators. Although many of the WASP hulls have sufficient through-hull penetrators, special dual units were manufactured so no additional machining was needed on the hulls.

Two variable buoyancy soft tanks, totaling almost 50 pounds, were fitted, one integral with the upper buoyancy pack and one forward of the lower dome. These will permit horizontal positioning and a more finite adjustment of trim. The previously employed electric solenoid flood system was discarded in favor of manual valves. The single air ballast bottle was replaced with two 46-cubic-feet bottles.

A 96-volt DC lead acid battery pack was added to increase emergency thrust from 20 minutes to 60 minutes on half power.

With these modifications and additions came the fact that buoyancy would be affected. Buoyancy is a known criteria when carrying out minor modifications, but in this case it was the unknown criteria. The new buoyancy has been designed to incorporate hardware while keeping the overall profile as small as feasibly possible.

Additional safety features have been incorporated, into the WASP Series 3. VHF radios and tracking beacons, digital CO2 meter and an internal air regulator are now fitted. The life support within the new WASP remains at 72 hours and the maximum depth is 2,300 feet (700m).