Computer-Based Control of Deep-Sea Manipulators

Traditionally, control of deep-sea manipulators happens in a master-slave fashion. The resulting necessity of a specially trained operator on-site severely limits the disposability of such systems. Further even simple tasks require significant amounts of time due to a number of factors, e.g. the operator´s limited view of the manipulation environment or the low level of intuitive sensory feedback of a manipulator´s actions. The CManipulator project of the DFKI-Lab Bremen, Germany, addresses these problems by utilising state-of-the-art computing algorithms to allow the partial automation of common tasks in deep-sea manipulation. This paper focuses on the basic principles and problems of such control structures on the example of the widely used hydraulic Orion 7P by Schilling Robotics.