An Overview of the Design and Development of a 6 DOF Remotely Operated Vehicle for Underwater Structural Inspection

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the software and hardware design for a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV), capable of operating in 6 degrees of freedom, specifically constructed for the purpose of underwater structural inspection. The software design component for the ROV described in the paper can be broadly categorized into a control model for propagation, Robot Operating System (ROS) modules, a visual processing pipeline and a dashboard interface for the end user. The hardware design part involves a special interest in building a low cost, yet efficient model for inspection. The control model is tested with the help of simulations implemented in Gazebo, a widely used simulation tool used in conjunction with Robot Operating System. The visual processing pipeline uses a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) based approach for underwater image enhancement. The dashboard application is an assisting framework for operating the vehicle remotely.