Controlling an uninstrumented ROV manipulator by visual servoing

Abstract

We present a vision-based method to control the displacement of robot arm mounted on an underwater ROV. A closed-loop system based on an eye-to-hand visual servoing approach has been designed to achieve this task. We show that, using such an approach, measuring the manipulator motion with proprioceptive sensors is not required to precisely control the end-effector motion. To maintain the end effector in the field of view, the camera orientation is also controlled. Presented results show the validity of the approach.