Design and Experiments with LoCO AUV: A Low Cost Open-Source Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
This work addresses the need for affordable and accessible underwater robotics for research and practical applications, though it is incremental as it builds on existing human-robot interaction methods.
The paper presents LoCO AUV, a low-cost, open-source autonomous underwater vehicle designed for vision-guided tasks at depths up to 100 meters, demonstrating its capabilities in local motion control, state estimation, and human-robot interaction through experiments in various aquatic environments.
In this paper we present LoCO AUV, a Low-Cost, Open Autonomous Underwater Vehicle. LoCO is a general-purpose, single-person-deployable, vision-guided AUV, rated to a depth of 100 meters. We discuss the open and expandable design of this underwater robot, as well as the design of a simulator in Gazebo. Additionally, we explore the platform's preliminary local motion control and state estimation abilities, which enable it to perform maneuvers autonomously. In order to demonstrate its usefulness for a variety of tasks, we implement a variety of our previously presented human-robot interaction capabilities on LoCO, including gestural control, diver following, and robot communication via motion. Finally, we discuss the practical concerns of deployment and our experiences in using this robot in pools, lakes, and the ocean. All design details, instructions on assembly, and code will be released under a permissive, open-source license.