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Posts Tagged ‘underwater robot’

The Aqua robots can be used in hard-to-reach spots like coral reefs, shipwrecks or caves. Though the diver remains at at a safe distance, he can see everything the robot sees. Check out this robot’s-eye-view of a swimming pool.

Aqua robots are controlled by tablet computers encased in a waterproof shell. Motion sensors can tell how the waterproofed computer is tilted, and the robot moves in the same direction, New Scientist reports.

As we wrote earlier this summer, tablet-controlled robots working in concert with human divers would be much easier to command than undersea robots controlled from a ship. Plus, they just look so cute.

[New Scientist]

As Technology Review reports, divers can use symbols on tablet computers to control underwater 'bots. The system could enable enhanced diver/robot collaboration.

Despite their importance for aquaculture, surveillance and oil-spill cleanup, it's still difficult to remotely control robots underwater, especially when they are not tethered to a mother ship. Radio waves are too easily distorted, sonar requires too much power, and aquatic particles interfere with light waves. One new system would give robots transmission capabilities, allowing them to relay information and work in swarms.

The waterproof tablets may be the solution. They can display two-dimensional bar codes, or tags, that are already in use for smart phone applications. The tag at left is showing 10 bits.

Flashing the tags at a free-swimming AQUA robot's underwater camera allows for fast, robust communication. It's better than other untethered communication platforms like sonar, Tech Review reports.

The tags correspond to a command stored in the robot's memory. When the bot is tethered, it can react to the tags instantly and transmit video back to the tablet. When it's untethered, it can respond to a tag command, perform its task and report back to the diver.

To date, the system has been tested in the open ocean and in swimming pools. Possible future uses include studying shipwrecks or even military applications, Tech Review says.

[Technology Review]

The European Union-funded Grex project, named for the Latin word for "flock," involves networking software to coordinate multiple autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs. Multiple AUVs can benefit from the sum of their parts, as the project's Web site notes -- each could perform separate functions that contribute to a larger mission.

Until now, AUVs have operated solo, partly because it's difficult to link different vehicles through seawater at distances of more than a few hundred feet. But in the Grex system, vehicles will be able to act as relay stations, bouncing a control signal from the mother ship to the networked submarines over many miles.

One of the firms involved in the Grex project, German firm MC Marketing Consulting, designed a "Grex box" that incorporates communications tied to the vehicle controls. The system could be added to an existing AUV, retrofitting it for use as a team member, according to Michael Jarowinsky of MC Marketing Consulting.

In tests off the coast of Portugal last winter, Grex-capable vehicles were able to assemble into formation and perform "swarm" tasks. Two small boats and two AUVs each ran its own tack while talking to the others and adjusting its speed to reach formation.

The main goal is to use Grex vehicles for marine science -- as the group points out, humans know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the oceans, 90 percent of which has not been explored. But the technology has several commercial applications, including the offshore oil industry, Jarowinsky says.

SeeByte, one of the project's partners, plans to market the control software and graphical user interface for managing schools of AUVs. The project coordinator, ATLAS Elektronik, plans within the next four years to offer a complete system, including the Grex box, software and installation and training.

[PhysOrg]