The Chasing M2 Pro Max – the company's flagship – is having a good year. It picked up a Red Dot award in April and now it's got a baby brother, ready to be easily deployed by a single operator.
• See our list of the best underwater drones, which has several Chasing ROVs
The new eight-motor ROV, built using a butterfly design, is powered with an on-board 97.68W battery that can keep its third-generation motors running for up to four hours. Their design uses magnets to minimise corrosion, and the layout supports independent translation and rotation control for 360-degree operation.
The body also houses a 4K camera built around a 12-megapixel 1/2.3-inch Sony CMOS and two 2000-lumen LED lights to boost illumination. Chasing says its mounting is designed to minimize "disturbing reflections from debris and particles in the water" (which makes the horror movie fan in me want to see some videos from some other ROVs too!)
The underwater drone's maximum dive depth is 100m (330ft) and the range depends on the choice of cable. The cable is the means by which control signals and live video is transmitted – the density of water doesn't allow for the level of data transmission experienced by aerial drones.
Chasing's steering system – which uses drone-like control sticks and is called "NeptuneX" – works in a similar way too, using depth and inertia monitoring tech to balance out waves in a similar way to GPS on a modern drone.
Chasing's drones target underwater photography, hull & dock inspection, fish stock monitoring, and emergency operations. The built-in camera offers 'Aquavision' image processing to improve underwater image quality for these tasks, but the Chasing M2S can also be equipped with accessories including GoPro cameras, sonar, laser scaler and even a grabber arm.
The M2S should go on sale this month in two combinations, the Chasing M2S 100m and the Chasing M2S 200m valuepack.
It sells for $2,799 and $2,999 respectively (around £2,225 / £2,385).
