Decision Support System for Autonomous Underwater Robot Grasping

Abstract

Underwater environments present numerous challenges for marine robots, such as noisy perception, constrained communication, and uncertainty due to wave motion. Human-in-the-loop systems can improve the efficiency and success rate of underwater grasping; however, collecting information in such unstructured environments and accurately presenting it to the operator remains a challenging task. Decision Support Systems (DSSs) can intelligently process and convey information to the operators to facilitate informed decision making. A DSS for autonomous underwater grasping provides visualization capabilities and tools to interact with the available information. Successful initial DSS-assisted underwater grasping was conducted using a six degrees of freedom robotic arm and a depth camera mounted on a mechanical testbed.