Hello!
I’m working in a development project to enable a ROV to be remotely operated Beyond Line Of Sight and to provide a live stream of the cameras on the ROV for the operator conducting the survey. Has anybody worked on a similar thing? Looking for pointers and caveats to be aware of.
Thanks!
Hi @volgnor -
I think just about every ROV mission is done “beyond line of sight” as the ROV is below the surface and not visible to the operator! The perspective of the ROV Camera is used to navigate and control the system, which can be augmented with sonars and position sensors.
Are you referring to using an ROV without a tether, and having it follow a pre-determined route? This is possible with ArduSub, and is often discussed on this forum! I recommend searching for auto mode, and researching the WaterLinked GPS and/or the Cerulean ROVL MkII, and understanding the difference between these absolute position sensors vs. relative position sensors like a DVL.
I’ve worked with similar ROVs for work and I can say if you mean Over The Horizon instead of BLOS then something similar to Blueye (I recommend X3 but X1 is just as good) is what you are looking for, Wi-Fi in the cable that connects to a router that someone can link up to from pretty much anywhere or done privately on a handheld on site. If you mean ACOMMS for BLOS then that is a much deeper conversation and depends on the environment sometimes but, since its an ROV i doubt ACOMMS will give the dependability you need. If you wish to have a more thorough conversation, feel free to reach out to me.
EDIT: I should mention, Blueye is insanely expensive.
Hi @Jagermax63
It’s actually possible to use any BlueOS powered vehicle (Blue ROV2 and BlueBoat, or any drone using it) “over the horizon” as long as it has a good internet connection - in the case of the ROV this would be shared from the surface control computer. You can then setup the ZeroTier extension / clients and forward the appropriate mavlink endpoint to your remote control station!
This is usually a great link for monitoring, but can be difficult for vehicle control as the latency is dependent on your internet connection.
Hi,
Thanks for the replies. Bad terminology on my side, I was indeed referring to over the horizon operation so that the ROV operator does not need to be located on the support boat where the ROV is tethered to.