Artificial potential field for remotely operated vehicle haptic control in dynamic environments

This article presents the development of a novel artificial potential field technique for a haptic controller of an underwater remotely operated vehicle to assist the pilot to avoid obstacles. The artificial potential field technique is used to replicate potential risks presented by underwater obstacles in the vicinity of the remotely operated vehicle. A risk avoidance vector is calculated based on the artificial potential field then transmitted to a haptic joystick to generate the tactile feedback, which enables the remotely operated vehicle pilot to be alerted to potential dangers due to surrounding obstacles and prompt the pilot through the joystick to avoid the dangers and safely navigate the vehicle. The novel artificial potential field technique can deal with both stationary and moving obstacles as it is combined with an obstacle motion detection algorithm based on fuzzy C-means and Kalman filter algorithms. These algorithms are applied to process raw data from the scanning sensor to identify the relative positions and velocities between the remotely operated vehicle and the obstacles, which are employed within the artificial potential field calculations. To validate the proposed technique, the haptic joystick and the novel artificial potential field formula were applied to control a simulated remotely operated vehicle within a virtual reality environment.