Using optical communication for remote underwater robot operation

Abstract

Underwater vehicles are typically operated using a tether or a slow acoustic link. We present an underwater optical communication system that enables a high-throughput and low-latency link to an underwater robot. The optical link allows the robot to operate in cluttered environments without the need for a tether. We demonstrate the performance of the system in a number of experiments which characterize the optical link and demonstrate remote control of the robot using a human input device.