Haptic driving system for surge motion control of underwater remotely operated vehicles

Abstract

This p a p er p resents the develo p ment of a ha p tic driving system for underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs). Unlike conventional ROV driving systems, which only transmit commands from the p ilots to the vehicle controller, the proposed haptic device has the ability to provide information about the working environment back to the operator via tactile sensing. In this paper, the drag force generated by the fluid interaction is chosen as the feedback objective for the haptic control. Hence, the haptic device helps the operator to sense the drag force via feedback through the joystick. A one degree of freedom (l-DOF) haptic joystick was developed to first control the surge motion of a simulated ROV model, with future work aimed at evaluation on an actual vehicle. The results of the haptic controller linked to the simulation model proved the feedback ability of the controller and identified areas of im p rovement, especially with regard to noise filtering.

Development of Handheld Haptics Device for Driving System of Unmanned Underwater Vehicles

“…This finding had resonant with previous research made on ROV motion in uniform current [14] where pitch angle significantly affected by the water current. Drag force, FD, caused by fluid with Ρ density of the fluid and CD drag coefficient, on ROV with A projected cross-sectional area moving at absolute speed, can be described as [3]…”

“…The operator's ability to comprehend ROV harsh underwater environment and driving the vehicle can badly affected by limited and fluctuating quality of visual feedback [3]. Research had been done to improve the visual feedback by embedding the vision feedback fed to the pilot with additional information on the environment underwater [4] [5].…”

Dynamics Modeling of Human–Machine Control Interface for Underwater Teleoperation

“…Additionally, the idea of using haptic device to provide information about the working environment back to the operator during navigation is investigated. 25 In particular, the drag force generated by the fluid interaction has been chosen as the feedback objective for the haptic control. However, the investigation is limited to the only surge motion of the ROV.…”