Coupled Control of Expeditionary Remote Operating Vehicles (ROV) and Manipulator Payloads

The United States Navy’s Maritime Expeditionary Standoff Response (MESR) program requires a solution that significantly simplifies the use and operation of miniature ROVs with manipulators in subsea Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) operations.  The optimal solution will provide coupled control of the ROV and manipulator tool such that the operator will interface with a single unified system instead of two disparate systems.  Coupling the control of these two systems will facilitate greater productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness when EOD Technicians conduct intervention tasks.  The ideal solution will be open architecture and support any ROV system the US Navy selects to use in expeditionary warfare, including the VideoRay Defender and SRS Fusion vehicles, and any manipulator system. Greensea is proposing an open architecture and hardware agnostic coupled control solution developed as an integrated toolbox module to EOD Workspace, the command and control software used on the VideoRay Defender ROV.  The proposed solution will provide immediate value to EOD Technicians, will increase operator performance, and will fit into the current MESR technology portfolio seamlessly.  Our proposed program plan leverages the extensive work Greensea has done with several manipulator packages used in support of EOD programs as well as the experience Greensea has supporting US Navy EOD activities through our EOD Workspace product to deliver an operationally appropriate solution.  The proposed technical solution also leverages Greensea’s experience developing and fielding ROV command and control systems for ROVs used in the oil and gas industry. The final technical solution will be available to any EOD Workspace software installation as an upgrade component or as a component of new releases moving forward. Greensea will prototype two coupled control modes in this Phase 1 effort, one that provides tool-relative ROV control via an XBox controller and one that provides optimal ROV positioning while using manipulators from a manipulator controller.  These prototype coupled control modes will be installed in a development branch of EOD Workspace for in-water evaluation on a VideoRay Defender ROV within the scope of Phase 1.  The proposed effort is designed to incrementally develop an optimal coupled control solution such that each step builds on the previous step and informs the next step.  By prototyping early solutions, we can develop the requirements needed to steer the final and optimal solution.   In Phase 2, Greensea will develop and deliver the candidate final coupled control solution based on the prototype control modes in Phase 1, using requirements from the US Navy, and using feedback from operators who have used the prototype coupled control modes to do in-water tasks.