From market-ready ROVs to low-cost AUVs
This provides a low-cost solution for industrial and research applications needing underwater autonomy, but it is incremental as it builds on existing ROV technology.
The paper tackles the high cost of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) by demonstrating how to modify a low-cost commercial Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) into an affordable AUV, achieving autonomous capabilities for intervention and mapping tasks.
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are becoming increasingly important for different types of industrial applications. The generally high cost of (AUVs) restricts the access to them and therefore advances in research and technological development. However, recent advances have led to lower cost commercially available Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), which present a platform that can be enhanced to enable a high degree of autonomy, similar to that of a high-end (AUV). In this article, we present how a low-cost commercial-off-the-shelf (ROV) can be used as a foundation for developing versatile and affordable (AUVs). We introduce the required hardware modifications to obtain a system capable of autonomous operations as well as the necessary software modules. Additionally, we present a set of use cases exhibiting the versatility of the developed platform for intervention and mapping tasks.