Precision Navigation Sensors Facilitate Full Auto Pilot Control of Smart ROV for Ocean Energy Applications Daniel Toal, Edin Omerdic and Gerard Dooly Mobile & Marine Robotics Research Centre University of Limerick Limerick, Ireland {daniel.toal}{edin.omerdic}{gerard.dooly}@ul.ie Abstract — A Smart Remotely Operated Vehicle, ROV Latis designed as a prototype test bed for operation such as the challenging role of ocean engineering support in wave and tidal energy development is presented in this paper. With state of the art navigation sensors/instruments the vehicle can achieve precision navigation and positioning sub sea and this capability has been utilised within automatic control functionality and autopilot control systems developed and trialed on ROV Latis and not available in commercial ocean ROV technology. This paper describes the vehicle’s many novel design features: sensor and control systems, autopilot systems, station keeping, fully automatic way point navigation, rapid auto tuning when ROV configuration or payload is changed, fully automatic fault tolerant thruster control with redundancy. The paper also introduces the transparent ocean immersive augmented reality pilot control environment. I. INTRODUCTION Deployment, installation & maintenance of ocean energy devices require use of underwater robots and support vessels, which are also used by other offshore industry e.g. off shore oil & gas. ROVs have thus become the workhorse of subsea operations in many sectors. Some ROV applications require precision navigation and positioning capabilities which can be achieved with (fibre optic gyro) FOG based INS systems. These sensor suites are expensive and often ocean engineering companies will forego use of such technology on cost grounds and use inferior sensor solutions with reliance on piloting skills. For ROVs, both with FOG based INS systems and without, operation of the vehicles remains a very skilled task and the industry is very dependent on the skills of ROV pilots. With the precision instruments however, significant levels of auto control can be developed and thus with autopilot functionality and advanced real-time visualisation, ROV operations can be made significantly less dependent on the skills of ROV pilots and the range of tasks that can be successfully undertaken is expanded. This paper describes a Smart Remotely Operated Vehicle, ROV Latis, designed as a prototype test bed for challenging operation environments in the ocean. ROV Latis shares much with other state of the art ROVs as used in ocean engineering and ocean research. The vehicle also has many features not available in commercial ocean ROV technology [1]. With state of the art navigation sensors/instruments the vehicle can achieve precision navigation and positioning sub sea. The navigation sensor suite includes a fiber optic gyro based inertial navigation system with extended Kalman filter integrated with aiding sensors (DGPS while on the surface, ultra short base line acoustic positioning (USBL), Doppler velocity log (DVL), precision depth sensor). Such a suite of sensors, while not ubiquitous, is not uncommon on research or some work-class ROVs. The automatic control functionality and autopilot control systems developed and trialed on ROV Latis are, however, superior to systems provided on other ROVs. This paper describes the vehicle with many novel design features. The sensor and control systems are described, the autopilot systems in particular are described which significantly deskills operation of such a vehicle in the challenging role of ocean engineering support in wave and tidal energy development. Station keeping, fully automatic way point navigation, rapid auto tuning when the ROV configuration or payload are changed, fully automatic fault tolerant thruster control with redundancy, the transparent ocean immersive augmented reality pilot control environment are described along with other detail in the paper. II. SMART ROV LATIS A. Features The main features of ROV Latis are: 1. Modular design with multiple modes of operation, 2. Very high positioning accuracy of ROV in deep water, 3. Semi-Automatic Speed Modes enable robust, stable and accurate ROV Course Following & ROV Dynamic Positioning with simple mouse click, 4. Fully automatic way points navigation with auto- compensation of ocean currents and umbilical drag effects,