Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle (ROV) Control System

This project contains the software to control a Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle (ROV). It consists of two main components: a base station control program and a program that runs on the ROV's Raspberry Pi.

System Architecture

• Base Station (base_station/):

  • Runs on a laptop or desktop computer.
  • Takes input from a keyboard or game controller (Xbox, PS).
  • Calculates the necessary thruster forces for 6-DOF movement (surge, sway, heave, roll, pitch, yaw).
  • Sends control commands to the ROV over the network (UDP).
  • Receives and displays telemetry data and video from the ROV.

• ROV/Pi (pi/):

  • Runs on a Raspberry Pi mounted on the ROV.
  • Receives control commands from the base station.
  • Controls 8 thrusters via PWM signals using the pigpio library.
  • Reads data from an IMU (for roll, pitch, yaw) and a pressure sensor (for depth).
  • Streams video from a RealSense camera and a standard Pi camera back to the base station.

Core Logic

1. Input: The base_station captures user input for desired movement.
2. Control:
   • Optional PID controllers can be enabled to automatically maintain a target depth, roll, pitch, or yaw.
   • A Kalman filter is available to smooth the depth measurement.
3. Kinematics: The desired movements are translated into individual forces required for each of the 8 thrusters.
4. Communication:
   • The base station sends thruster PWM commands to the Pi.
   • The Pi sends sensor telemetry (IMU, pressure, temperature) back to the base station.
   • The Pi streams video from its cameras to the base station.

How to Run

1. On the ROV's Raspberry Pi:

   • Ensure pigpiod service is running (sudo pigpiod).
   • Run the main Pi script: python3 pi/main.py.

2. On the Base Station Computer:

   • Run the main base station script: python3 base_station/main.py.

Configuration

• Network: IP addresses for the Pi and base station are set in pi/main.py and base_station/config.py.
• Controller: The input device (Keyboard, Xbox, PS) can be selected in base_station/config.py.
• Tuning: PID gains, sensor offsets, and thruster inversion/enable flags are located in base_station/config.py.
• Hardware Pins: GPIO pin assignments for the thrusters are defined in pi/main.py.