Abstract
Work-class ROVs equipped with robotic manipulators are extensively used for subsea intervention operations. Manipulators are teleoperated by human pilots relying on visual feedback from the worksite. Operating in a remote environment, with limited pilot perception and poor visibility, manipulator collisions which may cause significant damage are likely to happen. This paper presents a real-time collision detection algorithm for marine robotic manipulation. The proposed collision detection mechanism is developed, integrated into a commercial ROV manipulator control system, and successfully evaluated in simulations and experimental setup using a real industry standard underwater manipulator. The presented collision sensing solution has a potential to be a useful pilot assisting tool that can reduce the task load, operational time, and costs of subsea inspection, repair, and maintenance operations.
Highlights
Due to the lack of autonomous mobile-manipulator robots, tasks in remote and hostile environments are performed by manipulator arms operated by human pilots at distance
This paper describes a real-time collision detection algorithm based on a voxel map representation developed for use on work-class Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) manipulator systems
The developed solution can be integrated as a software upgrade into the control systems that are present in the global fleet of industry standard work-class ROVs
Summary
Due to the lack of autonomous mobile-manipulator robots, tasks in remote and hostile environments are performed by manipulator arms operated by human pilots at distance. Most of the research focus has been on algorithm development, evaluating them through simulations and laboratory experiments on industrial manufacturing electro-mechanical autonomous robots Many of these approaches are off-line and designed for preprogrammed robot motion planning, and not suitable for commercial ROV manipulator systems which are teleoperated utilising point-to-point control, where the full path cannot be known in advance. There is a research trend towards automating ROV intervention operations [10], and in the case the ROV industry adopts it, off-line collision avoidance approaches might become suitable This is still in its early research and development stage, and fully automated manipulator systems still do not exist in the global fleet of work-class ROVs. Various on-line collision detection methods based on different geometrical modelling approaches have been proposed.
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