Design, Fabrication and Control of a Semi Autonomous Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (USV) For Ocean Exploration

Abstract

As we all know that our earth consists of 71% of water and 29% of land, however the oceans and seas are still relatively unexplored. It takes less time to communicate with someone at mars as compared to underwater which take approx. 7 sec so this means we should also do some research on underwater systems. There are certain tasks related to water that are dangerous or challenging for human beings to do. The underwater robot systems are very expensive that is why their production in developing and under developing countries are limited. Our aim is to make an affordable Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle (ROUV) using Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) components. Our vehicle is controlled through a remote controller from a host ship/boat/platform or from the shore. It consists of a camera and a lighting system used for underwater surveillance and monitoring. Also, different types of sensors are used to collect various types of data from the water. We are doing our project in two phases. In first phase we just control our motors through Arduino to check that our (ROUV) moves in forward, backward, upward, and downward direction. In the second phase we replace Arduino with Raspberry Pi. All the sensors and the camera in now attached with Raspberry Pi. All the signals from the host ship are given to R-Pi and it acts according to that. Also, there is wired communication between our vehicle and controller because there is so many complications in underwater communication so for now, we are working on that we can drive our vehicle efficiently. Apart from ocean exploration it can be used in many industries like military, scientific research, hydrographic surveys, mine identification, oil industries and for underwater cable checking.