Underwater telerobotics for collaborative research

Abstract

Underwater robotics constitutes one of the most representative application fields of telerobotics. Over the last few decades, Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) have played a very important role in undersea exploration/intervention, reducing the need of manned submersibles. In the future, Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) equipped with acoustic modems and modern telerobotics technologies will do the job. This chapter explores underwater telerobotics reporting on the most representative scenarios involving ROVs and AUVs. A scenario involving the remote training of skilled researchers is analyzed in detail. In this context the tools needed for remote experimentation with the underwater robots developed by the University of Girona (Spain) are explained. These tools include a hardware in the loop (HIL) simulator called NEPTUNE and a control architecture called O2 CA2. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.