This paper reports on the design of an open source-based control platform for the underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Visor3. The vehicle’s original closed source-based control platform is first described. Due to the limitations of the previous infrastructure, modularity and flexibility are identified as the main guidelines for the proposed design. This new design includes hardware, firmware, software, and control architectures. Open-source hardware and software platforms are used for the development of the new system’s architecture, with support from the literature and the extensive experience acquired with the development of robotic exploration systems. This modular approach results in several frameworks that facilitate the functional expansion of the whole solution, the simplification of fault diagnosis and repair processes, and the reduction of development time, to mention a few.

This paper addresses the development of a modular hardware architecture for the design/construction/operation of a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), based on systems engineering. The Vee model is first presented as a sequential process that emphasizes the validation processes with stakeholders and verification plans in the development and production stages of the ROV’s life cycle. The conceptual design process starts with the mapping of user requirements to engineering specifications, using the House of Quality (HoQ), a quality function deployment tool that allows executing a functional-division-based hardware design process that facilitates the integration of components and subsystems, as desired for modular architectures. Then, the functional division and hardware architectures are described, and their connection is made through the proposed system architecture that sets the foundation for the definition of a physical architecture, as it involves flows that connect abstract functions with a real context. Development and production stages are exemplified through the design, construction, and integration of some hardware components needed for the remotely operated vehicle Pionero500, and the operational stage briefly describes the first sea trials conducted for the ROV. Systems engineering has shown to be a very useful tool for the development of marine vehicles and marine engineering projects that require modular architectures.

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This paper addresses the development of a modular software architecture for the design/construction/operation of a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), based on systems engineering. First, systems engineering and the Vee model are presented with the objective of defining the interactions of the stakeholders with the software architecture development team and establishing the baselines that must be met in each development phase. In the development stage, the definition of the architecture and its connection with the hardware is presented, taking into account the use of the actor model, which represents the high-level software architecture used to solve concurrency problems. Subsequently, the structure of the classes is defined both at high and low levels in the instruments using the object-oriented programming paradigm. Finally, unit tests are developed for each component in the software architecture, quality assessment tests are implemented for system functions fulfillment, and a field sea trial for testing different modules of the vehicle is described. This approach is well suited for the development of complex systems such as marine vehicles and those systems which require scalability and modularity to add functionalities.