A Novel Remote Control Method Oriented to Underwater Maninulators

Abstract

In order to pursue the objective of intuitive operation, a new remote control method oriented to multi-DOF underwater manipulators based on vision is presented in this paper. A rod with distinct color balls fixed at both ends is adopted as the remote control device in this technique. The operator can hold the rod and adjust its position and attitude in a certain area to control the underwater manipulator. Positioning system composed of multiple cameras are deployed around the operating space to detect and get the position of the color balls. Then the position of one ball and the relative position of two balls could be used to control the slave arm. Experiments are carried out in order to investigate the performance of the approach and the feasibility of the method is verified.