ROV Control Unit Design

[samworthington]

For the last few years we have been developing the Wing 3D control unit and have been using it to control UAVs. We would also like to try experimenting with ROVs.

I have done quite a lot of engineering work in the subsea oil and gas industry but my experience with ROVs is limited so it would be great to get some feedback from people at the sharp end of things. How do you think the Wing would compare to more typical control solutions? We're also be really interested to hear from people who would like to work on the integration of the Wing with an ROV. Please let me know here if you think you might be able to help and I'll get back to you.

I've created a very short (five question) survey and would really appreciate it if you could spare a couple of minutes to fill it in.

http://goo.gl/forms/JvgBOesU53

There are some more details on the Worthington Sharpe website.

http://www.worthingtonsharpe.com


Thanks in advance,

Sam

[Bindo]

Having spent a fair bit of time on Forum's VMAX simulator, and having a miniscule amount of "real" flying time in a test tank, I don't think i'd enjoy the experience of controlling a multi million pound system with a mouse.

As for the members on here, most of us don't have the luxury of a nice cosy control room to fly from, so joysticks and joypads are more than likely going to be the order of the day.

You might want to approach the commercial ROV manufacturers, the last visit i had @ Forum in the UK was discussing alternatives to the traditional joystick setup.

i think something like a 3d mouse might be of interest for controlling a 5 function grabber (Google "schilling rigmaster", though there are similar solutions to yours out there already.)

[samworthington]

Thanks for the comment, I totally appreciate what you are saying about 'controlling a million pound system with a mouse' but think it's a question of perception and something we will have to overcome.

The Wing is machined from aluminium and fully ball-raced, it uses Hall-Effect sensors for the joystick part that won't wear or drift and is as high-grade as any "proper" joystick, and we've certainly never experienced a reliability or accuracy problem with the mouse sensor.



We've had a similar perception problem with UAVs but found that as soon as both novice and professional pilots try they are surprised by how natural it feels. I have used it with VMAX too but nevertheless, I think that to convince people we need some proper testing to really evaluate the system. We are speaking to some ROV suppliers but I find that forums like this are usually a really good place to decent feedback.

UAV operators tend not to have a comfy control room either so we developed the Wing GCS http://www.worthingtonsharpe.com/gcs.html to make things a bit more pleasant and it was recieved when we launched it at the Skytech UAV event in London back in April.



I'd be interested to hear what exactly it is about the "mouse" that puts you off? Is there anything you think we could change to make it more appealing to ROV operators?

Sam

[Bindo]

The biggest thing that would put me off would be price, £780 incl Vat?? that's more than my whole build budget on one single peice of kit.

I've looked at a 3d mouse for 3d CAD, but alas the cost outweighed the benefit.

My current controller cost £30, and has lots of functionality,

My next system will use a re-purposed controller from something else, which importantly has pots for input to my Controller microcontroller, and micro switches.

Using TTL these will then be sent to the topside controller.

Most of us will be using TTL or I2C for comms with a controller, anyone else planning to use USB will probably be thinking a £20 wired game pad or joystick.

True there is a wealth of info on these websites, but if we had £780 to spend on a 3d mouse for a controller, we'd probably just buy an off the shelf system like a VideoRay or the like!


Edit: P.s.

I'm not sure if i'd like the Yaw "wings" any 3d mouse i've used you rotate the whole mouse so to speak, from an engineering point of view i can see why you've not implemented that design however, I'd likely find that function fiddly to operate, having to remove fingers from the mouse to control the yaw, i'd want a good drip on the whole assembly all the time!

[samworthington]

I know it's hardly cheap but that price is the best we can do with the machined components and for what is essentially a built-to-order product. The feedback we've got from commercial operators is that the price is fine, but it's a different game all together for people doing this sort of thing for fun. If we can get the volume up then we'll be able to lower the price.

We do actually find the yaw works well and people have asked if we could make a cheaper one with just the yaw bar. We considered a dual-sensor arrangement so the whole mouse could be rotated as well as translated across the desk but moved away from that option. Normal mouse movement does involve some yaw as the movement pivots around the elbow or upper arm (or if your doing it wrong, the wrist). It's also quite a difficult movement to control - try rotating your normal mouse while keeping the cursor still.

We settled on the handle-bar type arrangement with the two pads as it allows a push-pull movement between the thumb and the forth and fifth fingers. This grip is in fact used to operate the pitch and roll too, as it leaves the usually two fingers free for the main buttons. Your thumb and fingers rest on the yaw paddles so there is no need to take your fingers off the mouse to operate the yaw. Have a look at the video on our website and you'll see what I mean.

http://www.worthingtonsharpe.com/uav%20control.html

We've been thinking about how we could map the Wing's functions to ROV control and I'd be interested to hear if anyone has any ideas.

Cheers,

Sam