Operating an underwater manipulator via P300 brainwaves

Abstract

It would be difficult and stressful for a single operator to operate an underwater manipulator using his/her both hands in deep sea environments while the operator has to monitor or manipulate additional equipment. In order to reduce the operating pressure and make full use of the operator potentials, in this paper we propose a control strategy for operating the underwater manipulator via P300 brainwaves, which provides the operator a new way to operate the underwater manipulator without need for both hands. In this case, the two hands can be used to manipulate other equipment. The manipulator is a masterslave servo hydraulic manipulator with 7 functions, consisting of six degrees of freedom (DOFs) and a parallel gripper for manipulations. A p300 interface is designed by considering operation tasks of the underwater manipulator. It's a 3*3 image matrix where each image corresponds to an underwater manipulator behavior. An experimental platform, in which a virtual underwater manipulator is developed, is used for validating the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed brainwave-based strategy. Eight subjects are invited to do a typical underwater operational task, grasping a marine organism sample, on the virtual experimental platform. Their experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is feasible and effective.

A Method for Supervisory Control of Manipulator of Underwater Vehicle

“…Some components of such systems have been tested on the ROV Jason [26]. To simplify the manual control of MMs, a strategy with the use of the P300 Brain-Computer Interface is proposed [27]. However, all the systems considered do not allow identification of the shape of the work objects or automatically building complex spatial motion trajectories of MM working tools over the surface of these objects.…”

Object Extraction in Cluttered Environments via a P300-Based IFCE

“…The results show that the proposed P300-IFCE method is very robust for segmenting regions of interest. This study not only benefits people with severe motor disabilities, but also works as an auxiliary means of assisting the nondisabled man when both of his hands are busy, for example, our current project on control of an underwater manipulator via brainwaves [ 14 ]. In this application, the operator uses a P300 paradigm to control the underwater manipulator, while both the operator's hands are used to operate the underwater vehicle movement.…”