Hi, I am a beginner in this ROV and I started using Blue OS from BlueRobotic. Here I want to do research related to Ping Sonar on ROV.
In this research, I want to develop a ROV position control system by utilizing Ping Sonar facing horizontally forward. The goal is for Ping Sonar to detect the distance between the ROV and the ship’s hull, so that the ROV can maintain or maintain a certain distance from the ship’s hull automatically. Is this possible?
Please help me
Hi @firda -
Welcome to the forums!
The Ping sonar has a broad, 25 degree beam. If you’d like the ROV to hold position using that measurement, it should be possible to accomplish with a Lua script. The Autopilot is easier to modify with a Lua script rather than mucking about in the source code, or working with python in most cases.
Your Lua script would read the RangeFinder distance parameter, and run a control loop, sending RCinput (simulated joystick input) to keep the distance at the setpoint you desire. I’m no expert, but in the age of LLM AI getting such code working is pretty easy! I’m working on a guide for this sort of development, but besides threads with keyword “lua” on this forum, checkout this most recent script I’ve been working on. The tricky part may be enabling/disabling this mode of operation - maybe @williangalvani has some thoughts on the best approach for that.
It’s worth noting that the Ping sonar has a minimum distance of about 0.3 to 1m, depending on the reflectivity of the surface you’re measuring off of.
Thank you for your response. I would be greatly helped if you could make a guide for me to use this lua script to modify this control system…