Using Virtual Reality for Simulation of Underwater Human-Robot Interaction

Abstract

Modern day robots are used in virtually every field in society, from medicine to education to crime fighting to restaurants, including underwater tasks. Underwater robots Often when these robots are deployed, a diver and the robot are interacting directly using visual protocols and not using an operator interface to give directions. In order for these robots to work, they must be designed in such a way that it is simple for the operator and the robot to interact. During the design process, however, it is difficult to test underwater Human-Robot interaction (HRI) for various reasons such as the operator not always having access to a water body and the dangers of putting a human in the water for testing purposes. This creates a demand for a way to essentially complete trials for testing underwater HRI without needing to go to the water via simulating an environment. Virtual Reality is considered to be a powerful tool in immersing users into a simulated environment and allowing the user to interact with it. Thus, our premise for this research was to design a virtual reality (VR) system for testing human-robot interaction protocols for underwater robots in ensuring safe and effective human-machine collaboration