Human Divers Signal Underwater Robots What to Do

 November 25, 2015 The EU project “Cognitive Autonomous Diving budDY” (CADDY) has successfully finished field trials in Biograd na Moru, Croatia. The Jacobs Robotics Group is researching within CADDY new processes to enable interactions between underwater robots and human divers for assistance during complex underwater missions. Jacobs Robotics is working in this project on 3D underwater perception, for example to track divers and to recognize their gestures, and on 3D mapping, for example to use the robot during archeological missions. During the field trials in Biograd a special stereo camera system with its own processing unit to recognize and interpret gestures was very successfully tested. The fully self-contained system developed by the Jacobs Robotics Group was mounted on the underwater robot Artu and integrated into its control system.Artu is a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) that is normally steered via a cable from a ship or from the shore. But the gesture recognition system from Jacobs allowed divers to directly control the robot under water by telling it what to do in sign language.