An underwater vehicle is any member of the class of
watercraft
A watercraft or waterborne vessel is any vehicle designed for travel across or through water bodies, such as a boat, ship, hovercraft, submersible or submarine.
Types
Historically, watercraft have been divided into two main categories.
*Raf ...
that is intended to operate in the
underwater environment
An underwater environment is a environment of, and immersed in, liquid water in a natural or artificial feature (called a body of water), such as an ocean, sea, lake, pond, reservoir, river, canal, or aquifer. Some characteristics of the underw ...
, as opposed to
surface vessels that only stay afloat on top of water. This article lists the types of underwater vehicle, with a brief description of each type. An underwater vehicle can be
crew
A crew is a body or a group of people who work at a common activity, generally in a structured or hierarchy, hierarchical organization. A location in which a crew works is called a crewyard or a workyard. The word has nautical resonances: the ta ...
ed or
unmanned (which may be
remotely operated or
fully autonomous), and will generally, but not necessarily, have some form of onboard
propulsion system
Propulsion is the generation of force by any combination of pushing or pulling to modify the translational motion of an object, which is typically a rigid body (or an articulated rigid body) but may also concern a fluid. The term is derived from ...
.
Types
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* (towed underwater vehicle)
{{Underwater diving, other
Vehicles
Underwater diving lists