Implementation of Depth Control using a Blue robotic Ping Sonar Altimeter And Echo sounder in Explorer Class ROV

Abstract

Underwater vehicles have essential roles in exploration and research for shallow and deepwater missions. Most ROV is controlled by an operator who is on the surface via a tethered cable. With this cable, the operator will send data from the ground station to the ROV or vice versa. Due to the environment's disturbance, the ROV motion must control inputs to maintain the desired position. This problem can be solved by controlled them autonomously. The autonomous motion such as maintaining depth, roll, and pitch is executed by collecting state feedback from several types of sensors such as acoustic and inertia sensors. With this information and controller strategy, autonomous tasks can be performed. In this research, the ROV uses six motors as the thruster. Two motors are used for heavy motions, and four motors are used for surge, pitch, and roll motion. The proposed ROV uses a Raspberry Pi as its primary data processing and communication hub from the camera and controller to the ground controller. Several methods can be used to maintain depth depends on the sensor. In this paper, an acoustic sonar-based is used for maintaining the ROV's depth autonomously. The experimental results show that the Explorer Class ROV can maintain depth with an average depth accuracy of 95.77%.