Did The U.S. Navy Just Eliminate Decompression Sickness For Divers?

Sea Drone Recovery

The U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command and the Office of Naval Research partnered to use the new suit, called the Deep Sea Expeditionary with No Decompression suit, or DSEND to recover a sunken unmanned underwater vehicle in Keyport, New Jersey in June.

Three Navy divers used the suit in succession. Working with a Remotely Operated Vehicle, or ROV, they recovered an Iver 2 Unmanned Underwater Vehicle by lifting a rigging device to haul it to the surface.

The Iver family of underwater vehicles is produced by L3Harris. The underwater drones are designed for stealth operations and to complement the weapons of U.S. Navy submarines.

No Decompression Stops

Due to extreme pressures the ocean exerts on divers’ bodies that increase with depth, divers must make decompression stops before rising to the surface to allow gases in their bodies to stabilize.

Rising to the surface too quickly creates bubbles in a person’s bloodstream and tissues and leads to decompression sickness, also known as the bends. Failing to decompress adequately before surfacing can lead to death.

The Navy’s DSEND suit controls atmospheric pressures on the human body and forms a protective shell for divers to stop the extreme pressure of ocean water from impacting them regardless of depths.

Rigging Torpedoes

Featuring mechanical grippers, it allows divers to perform a wide range of different tasks underwater for extended periods while being supplied with oxygen from the surface.

Navy divers have tested the suit for a wide variety of underwater mission sets including rigging torpedoes and investigating a simulated plane wreck. Divers can walk, crawl and manipulate objects without compromising either their atmospheric safety or maneuverability.

“It allows divers to descend without restrictions and not worry about bottom time and air limitations,” said Navy Diver First Class Onofre Lopez, who used the suit to recover the drone, in a statement.

“There’s a little bit of growing pains as far as ballasting the suit, but other than that, it allows us to stay comfortable essentially indefinitely.”

Military Tech With Civilian Potential

Paul McMurtrie, diving systems program manager at Naval Sea Systems Command, said in a video released by the Office of Naval Research that the suit allows divers to remain below depths for six or seven hours at a time and ascend with no delays.

“We can haul him straight back to the surface. Open the hatch. He jumps out of the suit. The next guy jumps in,” McMurtrie said.

The suit represents a major breakthrough in military technology and will expand the capabilities of U.S. Navy divers to perform stealth operations at great depths. It will significantly reduce risks to divers carrying out operations by eliminating not only the need for decompression stops but occurrences of decompression sickness.

Will civilian divers eventually get access to this type of technology? Now that this technology has been developed, it appears inevitable that it will reshape the world of diving in the future. Diving gear that eliminates the need for decompression stops could potentially contribute to investigating shipwrecks and making the ocean floor more transparent as military technology continues to revolutionize what is possible.