Research on the Control System for Electric ROV

Electric remotely operated vehicles (EROV) are more environmentally friendly in marine environments due to the use of electric thrusters as their power source, compared to traditional hydraulic ROV. This paper proposes a surface-underwater control system for EROVs, along with a thruster control method. The underwater controller communicates with the thruster drive system via Ethernet to control thruster movement, and feeds back the real-time status of each electric thruster to the surface controller. The electric thrusters are powered by a DC-DC converter, subject to energy management and regulation by a controller. Considering actual operational requirements of these electric thrusters, an analysis based on a ROV dynamic equation investigated the control process for EROV movement. The response of each thruster to control instructions was tested in water under the manual mode of the EROVs. Experimental data were used to further analyze corresponding relationships of EROV speeds and electric thruster speeds with joystick input levels. The tank test results demonstrate that the control method designed in this paper is effective in controlling the movement of EROVs.