Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle Control Station Analysis

Background

            A company in China, Shenzhen Vxfly Intelligent Information Technology Co., is in the early stages of producing and selling a tethered unmanned maritime submersible targeted at the prosumer market called the CCROV. The company was formed in 2015 by He Wei and a group of students attending the Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi’an China (CCROV, 2016). The idea of a submersible ‘drone’ came after the students accidentally crashed an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) into the sea, requiring divers to retrieve the SD card from the UAV (Indiegogo, 2016).

     Indiegogo. (2016). CCROV remotely operated vehicle and Tether Deployment System.

            The CCROV is an underwater remotely operated vehicle capable of recording 4K (3840x2160 pixels) video footage. Most professional unmanned submersibles record at 1920x1080 pixels. The CCROV has 6 thrusters to allow 5 degrees of freedom: forward & back, up & down, right & left, yaw and roll (Indiegogo, 2016). This again is unusual compared to other products on the market which normally have 3 or 4 thrusters. The additional thrusters allow improved maneuverability. The submersible is cuboid in shape with dimensions of 130mm in height, 208mm in length, and 204mm in width (Indiegogo, 2016). The CCROV weights 9.9 pounds and is connected to the controller with a tether that can range from 65 feet to 328 feet (Indiegogo, 2016).

Hardware

            The CCROV can be controlled with and without the controller (which is included with purchase). The tether attached to the submersible is winded into a “tether deployment system” which communicates over Wi-Fi (IEEE802 protocol) to either the iOS/Android mobile device or the remote controller (Cosworth, 2016). The tether deployment system contains a Li-ion battery which provides the CCROV with power for 90 minutes (Indiegogo, 2016).

            The camera onboard the CCROV is a Sony IMX 206 CMOS sensor with a focal length of 1/2.3 (Indiegogo, 2016), similar to the type used by mid grade consumer UAVs. The lens provides a field of view of 94 degrees and a still image resolution of 4000x3000 pixels (Indiegogo, 2016). Several video recording modes are supported: 4K at 25fps, 2.7K at 30fps, 1440P at 30fps, 1080p at 60fps and 30fps, and 720p at 60fps and 120fps (Indiegogo, 2016). These formats are standard for consumer UAVs but are uncommon in the unmanned remotely operated vehicle (ROV) market. These high resolutions can provide the user with much higher detail than the typical 1080p resolutions onboard ROVs. The 60fps and 120fps frame rates at the lower resolutions can provide slow motion video capture, useful when there is a lot of movement within the frame.

Software and User Interface

     Google Play. (2016). CCROV Android App.

            Vxfly produces Android and iOS apps which can control the CCROV with and without the controller. The CCROV Android app (version 3.1) requires Android OS version 4.4 and up and was updated as recently as December 22nd, 2017 (Google Play, 2018). The CCROV iOS app (version 1.0.7) requires iOS 9.1 or later an was updated on December 16th, 2017 (iTunes Preview, 2018). Both apps allow the user a view from the ROV at a resolution of 720p. Operational information is displayed via the app using a simple interface. This information includes depth in meters, temperature in Celsius, direction in relation to the mobile device, relative humidity, battery life, and still/video recording information. In addition to controlling the ROV, additional functionality is available using the app including changing video quality, changing image size, change white balance, formatting the SD card, viewing photos and videos. (Google Play, 2018). The mobile devices running the CCROV app are connected to the tether deployment system using a local Wi-Fi network.

Recommendations

            The CCROV app interface benefits from being very simple, however, I believe that additional information should be displayed to the operator. More advanced users should have the option to toggle panes with more information such as horizontal speed, vertical speed, battery life remaining as a function of time. More advanced camera settings would be appreciated by photographers, such as ISO, shutter speed, white balance, memory card capacity remaining, and photo and video resolution.

In addition to the software recommendations above, sensors should be installed on the ROV to provide the user with distance information in all directions to reduce the chance of collisions with objects or marine wildlife. Additional vision sensors could also be installed on the rear and sides of the vehicle to show alternative views inside the app or provide an immersive 3D experience with the use of first person view goggles.

References

CCROV. (2016). Who we are. Retrieved from CCROV website at http://www.ccrov.com/about.html

Indiegogo. (2016). CCROV-The First Underwater Drone with a 4K Camera. Retrieved from Indiegogo website at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ccrov-the-first-underwater-drone-with-a-4k-camera#/updates/all

Coxworth, B. (2016, September 16). Another aquatic drone is ready to dive deep. Retrieved from New Atlas website at https://newatlas.com/ccrov-underwater-drone/45475/

Google Play. (2018). CCROV App Product Page. Retrieved from Google Play website at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vf.ccrov&hl=en

iTunes Preview. (2018). CCROV App Product Page. Retrieved from Apple website at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ccrov/id1192961500?mt=8