Robots in the deep sea

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If a mission is too deep or risky for divers, it is possible to send an ROV, an underwater vehicle operated by remote control. These robots can be much more intelligent in their tasks, as evidenced by the tests at sea made in Marseille

The Janus boat is about to leave the port for a day at sea. It carries a frequently used technology to observe or mani[CENSORED]te something on the seabed: a pressure resistant robotic platform attached to the ship by a long cable. Peter Weiss, robotic and automation engineer, says that diving beyond 700 meters is almost impossible and that is for those operations in the depths of the sea where ROVs are used.

The robot is equipped with two cameras that provide stereoscopic vision, similar to that of human eyes. It also has advanced arms handled by three fingers, allowing them to have better capabilities than ROVs with two fingers. The European DexROV project aims to increase the ability of robots to handle objects and, according to project coordinator Jeremi Gancet, to allow the control center to be able to operate anywhere in the world.

So far all ROVs have to be directed from the boat. When doing it from the mainland, operations can be safer and cheaper, in addition to being able to use smaller boats. For the test, a vessel in the Mediterranean is connected via satellite to a control center in Belgium.

For hundreds of kilometers, the operators work with a virtual reality simulation. Your orders are transmitted to the robot. There is a delay in communication, so the ROV has to be autonomous enough to operate without real-time control. It needs intelligence to interpret what is done from the virtual world and to act accordingly in the sea.

Virtual researcher Javier Martínez González explains the process: "We have separately what the robot does and what the control center does. Here the work will be directed continuously, in real time. The intelligent software will observe what we do from the control center and we will send this information to the robot that will do the tasks automatically, by itself, without our continuous direction. "

To make the robotic arms more skilled, engineers at the European research center use an exoskeleton system. It gives the operator an answer with a sense of strength, allowing him to feel the weight and the resistance of mani[CENSORED]ted objects in virtual reality. It is about that the robot reproduces the movements of the exoskeleton to enable the work with great delays, according to the robotic engineer Pierre Letier.

This technology can help control vehicles with greater safety and precision. Not only at sea depths but also on land, where robotic ability could be useful. Jeremi Gancet exemplifies the accident at the Fukushima plant, "places that are really dangerous to access but where there is a need to intervene and where this kind of technology can be very beneficial."

Researchers will continue to test individual elements of their advanced ROV system, with a view to a full test at 1,300 meters deep in the Mediterranean Sea.

Video:

http://es.euronews.com/2017/08/07/robots-en-las-profundidades-marinas