The Eyeball ROV : an underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle featuring advances in rotational actuation, communication, and localization

Abstract

The design for a spherical Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) with a camera, called the Eyeball ROV due to motions similar to the human eye, is presented in this thesis. The ROV features an actuation scheme that utilizes a two-axis gimbal for changing the location of the center of mass of the ROV. This creates continuous and unlimited rotations in place on the part of the ROV, allowing the camera to be panned and tilted. A model of the ROV is presented, and control was tested in both simulation and experiments. In addition, a dual-use system for both communication and localization of the ROV is presented. This novel dual-use system uses visible blue light (-470nm) to relay data in addition to providing a beacon with which the orientation and position in space of the ROV was estimated. This localization algorithm was implemented using an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), and was tested in both simulations and experiments.