Unema’s Underwater Robotics Engineering Career

This was an thrilling break for Unema, a Washington state native who had grown up tinkering with electronics and exploring the outside. Unema joined the group in early 2016 and has since helped develop and function deep-sea robots for scientific expeditions across the globe.

The GFOE’s contract with NOAA expired in July, forcing the engineering group to disband. However quickly after, Unema teamed up with 4 former colleagues to start out their very own ROV consultancy, known as Deep Exploration Solutions, to proceed the work he’s so captivated with.

“I really like the exploration and simply seeing new issues day-after-day,” he says. “And the engineering challenges that go together with it are actually thrilling, as a result of there’s numerous stress down there and numerous technical issues to unravel.”

Nature and Know-how

Unema’s fascination with electronics began early. Rising up in Lynden, Wash., he took aside radios, modified headphones, and hacked collectively USB chargers from AA batteries. “I’ve all the time needed to know the way issues work,” he says. He was additionally a Boy Scout, and far of his youth was spent climbing, tenting, and snowboarding.

That love of each expertise and nature may be traced again, a minimum of partly, to his dad and mom—his father was a civil engineer, and his mom was a high-school biology instructor. However one other main affect rising up was Kredit, the science instructor who went on to recruit him. (Kredit was additionally a colleague of Unema’s mom.)

Kredit has received quite a few awards for his work as an educator, together with the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Instructing in 2004. Like Unema, he additionally shares a love for the outside as Yellowstone Nationwide Park’s longest-serving park ranger. “He was a superb science instructor, very inspiring,” says Unema.

When Unema graduated highschool in 2010, he determined to enroll at his father’s alma mater, Michigan Technological University, to review engineering. He was initially uncertain what self-discipline to comply with and signed up for the final engineering course, however he shortly settled on electrical engineering.

A summer season internship at a metal mill run by the multinational company ArcelorMittal launched Unema to manufacturing unit automation and meeting strains. After graduating in 2014 he took a job at Gentex Corp. in Zeeland, Mich., the place he labored on manufacturing methods and industrial robotics.

Diving Into Underwater Robotics

In late 2015, he bought the decision from Kredit asking if he’d be concerned with engaged on underwater robots for GFOE. The function concerned not simply engineering these methods, but additionally piloting them. Taking the plunge was a troublesome selection, says Unema, as he’d simply been promoted at Gentex. However the promise of journey mixed with the novel engineering challenges made it too good a chance to show down.

Constructing expertise that may stand up to the crushing stress on the backside of the ocean is hard, he says, and you need to make trade-offs between weight, measurement, and value. Every little thing needs to be waterproof, and electronics need to be fastidiously remoted to forestall them from grounding on the ocean flooring. Some parts are pressure-tolerant, however most have to be saved in pressurized titanium flasks, so the parts have to be extraordinarily small to attenuate the scale of the metallic housing.

Unema conducts predive checks from the Okeanos Explorer’s management room. As soon as the ROV is launched, scientists will watch the digicam feeds and advise his group the place to direct the car.Art Howard

“You’re working very intently with the mechanical engineer to suit the electronics in a extremely small house,” he says. “The smaller the cylinder is, the cheaper it’s, but additionally the much less mass on the car. Each little bit of mass means extra buoyancy is required, so that you wish to preserve issues small, preserve issues gentle.”

Communications are one other problem. The ROVs depend on a number of kilometers of cable containing simply three single-mode optical fibers. “All of the communication wants to come back collectively after which go up one cable,” Unema says. “And yearly new devices devour extra knowledge.”

He works completely on ROVs which might be customized made for scientific analysis, which require smoother management and significantly extra electronics and instrumentation than the heavier-duty autos utilized by the oil and gas business. “The science ones are all hand-built, they’re all quirky,” he says.

Unema’s function spans the total life cycle of an ROV’s design, development, and operation. He primarily spends winters upgrading and sustaining autos and summers piloting them on expeditions. At GFOE, he primarily labored on two ROVs for NOAA known as Deep Discoverer and Seirios, which function from the ship Okeanos Explorer. However he has additionally piloted ROVs for different organizations through the years, together with the Schmidt Ocean Institute and the Ocean Exploration Trust.

Unema’s new consultancy, Deep Exploration Options, has been given a contract to do the winter upkeep on the NOAA ROVs, and the agency is now looking out for extra ROV design and improve work, in addition to piloting jobs.

An Engineer’s Life at Sea

On expeditions, Unema is accountable for driving the robotic. He follows directions from a science group that watches the ROV’s video feed to establish issues like corals, sponges, or deepwater creatures that they’d like to research in additional element. Typically he may even function hydraulic arms to pattern notably attention-grabbing finds.

Typically, the missions are aimed toward discovering new species and mapping the vary of recognized ones, says Unema. “There’s numerous the underside of the ocean the place we don’t know something about it,” he says. “Principally each expedition there’s some new species.”

This entails being at sea for weeks at a time. Unema says that life aboard ships may be difficult—many new crew members get seasick, and also you spend virtually a month residing in shut quarters with folks you’ve typically by no means met earlier than. However he enjoys the chance to satisfy colleagues from all kinds of backgrounds who’re all deeply enthusiastic in regards to the mission.

“It’s like once you go to scout camp or summer season camp,” he says. “You’re all assembly new folks. Everybody’s actually excited to be there. We don’t know what we’re going to seek out.”

Unema additionally relishes the problem of fixing engineering issues with the limited resources available on the ship. “We’re going out to the center of the Pacific,” he says. “Issues break, and also you’ve bought to repair them with what you might have on the market.”

If that sounds extra thrilling than daunting, and also you’re concerned with working with ROVs, Unema’s foremost recommendation is to speak to engineers within the discipline. It’s a small however pleasant group, he says, so simply do your analysis to see what alternatives can be found. Some teams, such because the Ocean Exploration Belief, additionally function internships for school college students to assist them get expertise within the discipline.

And Unema says there are only a few careers fairly prefer it. “I adore it as a result of I get to do all facets of engineering—from concept to operations,” he says. “To have the ability to take one thing I labored on and use it within the discipline is admittedly rewarding.”

This text seems within the December 2025 print challenge as “Levi Unema.”