Submitted for consideration to the 11th International Symposium on Unmanned

Untethered Submersible Technology, Durham, NH, September 19-22, 1999.

A New Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle

for Dynamics and Control Research
David Smallwood1, Ralf Bachmayer, and Louis Whitcomb2
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Johns Hopkins University

Introduction

This paper reports the development of a new remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) designed to serve as a
platform for rapid development and deployment of novel underwater vehicle systems. The goal is to enhance our
ability develop new underwater vehicle subsystems in the laboratory, and rapidly field-test these new systems.
Although a significant fraction of ONR and NSF sponsored underwater vehicle research is now directed towards
AUVs, we argue that ROVs continue to provide a highly efficient platform for the research and development of
advanced underwater technology. Once developed and validated on ROVs, numerous technologies have been
readily transitioned for use in autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). Section 1.1 examines several contexts in
which ROVs have served as development platforms for critical AUV technology. Section 1.2 reviews the desired
performance specifications for the new vehicle.

1.1

Historical Role of ROVs in UUV Research

A decade of operational experience by numerous research groups has demonstrated ROVs to be ideal platforms for
rapid prototyping and rapid field deployment of UUV subsystems. Recent examples include, sonar imaging and
survey, optical imaging and survey, navigation, control, oceanographic sampling, and subsea manipulation.
Numerous research results first pioneered with ROVs and towed vehicles are now commonly employed for
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and sea-floor observatories. Examples include the following:
1.

LBL Acoustic Navigation: Long baseline acoustic navigation (LBL) remains the most commonly used method
for acoustic underwater navigation. LBL was originally developed in the 1970s at WHOI for the Alvin
Submersible [9], was adopted for use on the Jason ROV in the 1980s [20], and transitioned in the 1990s for use
in AUVs including ABE [21] and Odyssey [13].

2.

Closed Loop Vehicle Control: The closed-loop control (dynamic positioning) systems originally developed for
Jason [23, 20] in the 1980s and 1990s have been transitioned for use in AUVs including ABE [22] and Odyssey
[13].

3.

Acoustic Survey: Precision quantitative acoustic benthic survey and mensuration techniques originally
developed with Jason [14] have recently been successfully transitioned for use in the ABE AUV [16]. Recent
reports show that sonar features can be utilized for vehicle navigation, e.g. [10].

4.

Optical Survey: Optical benthic survey and mensuration. Deep-ocean optical survey was pioneered in the
1970s and 1980 with the Angus and Argo towed systems at WHOI. Early successes include finding the wreck
of the R.M.S. Titanic during an optical search in 1985 [2]. These techniques have been subject to ongoing
development with the Jason and Argo II ROV system for precision optical survey [14] and have recenty been
transitioned for use in the ABE AUV system.

1
2

Corresponding author is David Smallwood.

The authors are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, 200 Latrobe Hall, Johns Hopkins University,
3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland, 21218 USA, email: d_smallwood@jhu.edu, ralf@jhu.edu,
llw@jhu.edu. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Office of Naval Research and the National
Science Foundation under ONRYI grant #N00014-97-1-0487 and Career grant #BES-9625143 held by Louis
Whitcomb.

5.

Low-Power Robot Arms: Low-power electrically actuated underwater robot manipulator arms were developed
for use on the Jason ROV as a highly efficient alternative to hydraulically actuated arms [24, 15]. This
manipulator has proven to be highly effective at subsea sampling and manipulation tasks [1]. Electically
actuated arms are a fundamental an enabling technology for future AUV missions requiring robotic
manipulation [12].

6.

Electric Thrusters: DC electric thrusters provide dramatically improved propulsion efficiencies in comparison
to hydraulic thrusters. Electric thruster design originally pioneered for manned submersibles and ROVs (e.g.
Jason) have served as the basis for the small highly efficient electric propulsors now universally employed in
AUVs such as ABE, Odyssey, NPS, and FAU vehicles [3, 8, 19].

Based on the above, we argue that ROVs provide an effective development platform for underwater vehicle
research, laboratory, testing, and field-trials of novel underwater vehicle sub-systems. This paper describes a
relatively low-cost ROV, presently nearing completion, to serve as such a developmental platform.

1.2

Vehicle Design Goals

The principal objective of the new vehicle is to serve as a convenient, cost-effective platform for research,
development, and experimental validation of vehicle control systems, vehicle navigation techniques, and vehicle
control algorithms. To achieve this goal, we selected the vehicle design goals listed in Table 1.
PARAMETER

SPECIFICATION

PURPOSE

Size:

1.5m x 1m x 1m

Ease of handling and deployment

Mass:

140Kg

Ease of handling and deployment

Stability:

Passively stable in roll and pitch, re-configurable for

dynamic roll/pitch control.

Provides both 4-DOF and 6-DOF

vehicle dynamics.

Propulsion:

Electric thrusters, 300 N each axis

Control bandwidth and authority

Propulsion
Instrumentation

Current mode amplifiers, instrumented for propeller

shaft position, 1000Hz Sample Rate

Thruster dynamics and control

research.

Position
Instrumentation

Six Degree of Freedom (6-DOF), 5Hz min.

Vehicle navigation, dynamics and

control research.

Computer control
system

Easily re-programmed while at depth, providing up

to 1000Hz sample rates.

Vehicle navigation, dynamics and

control research.

Video

Standard NTSC

Closed-loop optical servo research.

Manipulator Arm

Capable of supporting future pair of 6-DOF electric

arms.

Development of manipulation
techniques for AUVs.

Payload Support

Generic payload port providing power, RS422 and

ethernet telemetry.

Development and testing of novel

subsystems.

Tether

10KVA DC power, real-time data and video

telemetry.

Ease of development and

experimentation

Table 1: Vehicle Design Goals

Vehicle Description

The vehicle is presently under construction, but will look similar to the concept drawing in Figure 1. This section
outlines the design choices made by the authors to achieve the goals outlined in Table 1. Section 2.1 reviews the
vehicle propulsion system. Section 2.2 reviews the vehicle navigation suite. Section 2.3 outlines the vehicle control
system architecture.

Figure 1: JHU ROV #1 Design Concept

2.1

Propulsion

To achieve the disparate goals of high thrust, small size, and precise propeller position instrumentation, we have
developed a compact 3-Phase DC electric thruster. The thruster is internally pressure compensated with mineral oil,
and rated for full ocean depth operation. The thruster specifications are shown in Table 2: Thruster Specifications.
The new thruster is pictured in Figure 2 and an assembly drawing is shown in Figure 3.

Motor Type

3 Phase DC Permanent Magnet Brushless Motors

Torque

6.5 N-m Maximum, 2.16 N-m Continuous

Thrust

150 N Peak

Power

1.5 kW

Control

Current Mode Amplifiers providing 2mS current response to +/- 15 amps at

150 bus voltage. Amplifiers housed external to thruster.

Feedback

Resolver Shaft Position, 4096 count/rev (0.088) Angular Resolution

Depth

Full ocean depth. Internally pressure compensated.

Table 2: Thruster Specifications

Figure 2: New 3-Phase DC Brushless Thruster

Figure 3: Exploded View of New 3-Phase DC Brushless Thruster

The initial vehicle configuration will use five DC brushless thrusters for propulsion, with built-in support for an
additional sixth thruster. The initial configuration will employ two thrusters for forward/reverse thrust, two for
lateral thrust, and one for vertical thrust. The current control amplifiers will be housed one of two AL7075 pressure
housings along with a PC/104 CPU dedicated to thruster control. The PC/104 thruster controller is capable of
1000Hz closed-loop thruster control, and is provided with a direct high-speed telemetry link to the surface control
computer.

2.2

Navigation

Precision vehicle position sensing is an often overlooked and essential element of precision control of underwater
robotic vehicles. The analytical and experimental development of undersea robotic vehicle tracking controllers is
rapidly developing, e.g. [20, 5, 7, 8, 4, 6], however few experimental implementations have been reported other than
for heading, altitude, depth, or attitude control. Conspicuously rare are experimental results for X-Y control of
vehicles in the horizontal plane. This lacuna is a direct result of the fact that at present, few techniques exist for
reliable three-dimensional position sensing of underwater vehicles.
The new ROV will be equipped for full 6-DOF position measurement. Vehicle heading, roll, and pitch (and their
time derivatives) are instrumented with a KVH ADGC gyro-stabilized magnetic compass system. Depth is
instrumented with a standard analog strain-gage pressure transducer. Depth and attitude sensors are housed in an
AL7075 pressure housing. Vehicle XYZ position will initially be instrumented with a 300kHz Sharps time-of-flight
hard-wired acoustic navigation. We hope to also add a 1200 kHz bottom-lock doppler navigation system. The
navigation sensor specifications are listed in Table 3.

Variable

Sensor

Precision

Update Rate

Heading

KVH ADGC

10 Hz

Roll and Pitch

KVH ADGC

0.1

10 Hz

Depth

Entran EXPO-X73-300P

0.75%

Analog

XYZ Position

300 kHz Sharps Acoustic

Transponder System

0.5 cm

5 Hz

XYZ Velocity

1200 kHz RDI Workhorse

Doppler

1 mm/sec

5 Hz

Table 3: Vehicle Navigation Sensors

2.3

Control System Architecture

The new vehicle control system architecture will enable rapid development and field-testing of advanced UUV
systems. The proposed control system will be structured for ROV control, as depicted in Figure 4, but will contain a
variety of modules, which can be adapted for AUV control. The control system uses a two-part system design,
partitioning safety-critical from non safety-critical subsystems for cost-effective implementation and enhancement
a strategy employed successfully on the original Jason and Argo II control systems [18].

Surface Systems
Sy stem GMT Clock

Ship Dy namic
Positioning Sy stem

Surface Core Control System

Ship LBL Acosutic

Nav igation System

Vehicle Control Computer

GPS Satellite Nav

Sy stem
Real-Time Data
Logging Sy stem

Pilots user Interf ace,

joy stick, Instruments

LBL-Doppler
Nav igation Process

Nav igation Process

Engineer user
Interf ace

Power Mana gement

and Hotel Process

Control Process

Manipulator user
interf ace, instruments

Science Pay load

Interf ace, instruments

Work package
interf ace, instruments

Video Distribution and

Recording Subsy stem

Surf ace Telemetry

Pilot Video Display

Data/Video Telemetry f rom Vehicle to Surf ace

Sonar
DCON
LBL Nav igation DCON

Manipulator DCON

Vehicle Tel emetry

Work Package DCON

Doppler Nav igation

DCON

Thruster DCON

Science Pay load

DCON

Nav igation DCON

Video DCON

Power Mgmt and

Hotel DCON

Vehicle On-Board Core Control System

Figure 4: New ROV Control System: Initial configuration shown with solid lines. Proposed
future enhancements shown with dashed lines.

2.3.1

On-Board Vehicle Control System: Data Concentrator Architecture.

The on-board vehicle control system controls and monitors all vehicle sensors and actuators in response to real-time
commands from a surface control system. We will adopt a data concentrator (DCON) type of architecture, similar

to the MBARI Tiburon vehicle [11]. Each data concentrator (DCON) module will independently control the power
and data telemetry for an entire vehicle subsystem or scientific payload. The DCONs will receive commands from
the surface control computer, monitor the status, and report data from on-board vehicle subsystems and instruments.
Each data concentrator operates asynchronously, and will communicate to the surface control computer via a high
bandwidth fiber-optic telemetry-link.
The data concentrator vehicle control system architecture employs relatively simple on-vehicle computer systems.
We anticipate employing commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) embedded computers for the data concentrators. The
simplicity of the data concentrator design will render them both highly reliable and easily re-configurable.

2.3.2

Surface Control System

The surface control system is the central brain of the ROV control system. It is comprised of a core system of
safety-critical systems that are essential for safety and control of the ROV, and an extended system providing non
safety-critical systems such as data logging and video recording. The structure of this system is depicted in
The safety-critical core system is comprised of the vehicle control computer and user interfaces for the vehicle pilot
and engineer. The pilot station provides real-time video, navigation instruments, has joystick controls for closedloop control of the vehicle reference trajectories and navigation way-points, and has controls for the vehicles
manipulator arms. The engineer station has a more comprehensive set of real-time vehicle status indicators, and
enables the engineer to control all vehicle subsystems. The modules are depicted in Figure 4.
Concentrating the vehicle intelligence in the ship-board control computer dramatically simplifies and accelerates
development reprogramming an on-ship computer is significantly easier than reprogramming an embedded vehicle
control computer.

Current Status and Future Work

The vehicle design was completed in December 1998. It is currently under construction, scheduled for completion
in May 1999. Starting in Summer 1999, wet trials are scheduled to begin with full use in thrust control algorithm
experiments scheduled for the Fall of 1999. An initial goal will be the experimental evaluation of the effect of thrust
control algorithms, e.g. [17], on closed-loop vehicle maneuvering.

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