Development of ROV Simulator based on Real Oceanographic Data

In recent years, demand for efficient oceanographic research for the development of marine resources has been increasing on a global scale. In general, research and operation training on underwater robotics in the ocean is very costly, and the climate and conditions of the ocean may make it impossible to conduct experiments. In this paper, we introduce an ocean simulator using real oceanographic data that can avoid these issues. First, we treat Choreonoid which is an integrated software for robots applied by National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), as the basis of the simulator software. Furthermore, to demonstrate its feasibility in a more realistic ocean environment, we introduce the seabed data obtained from oceanographic research and a function to reproduce ocean currents on the simulator. In this paper, self-localization experiment is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the simulator for oceanographic research. Copyright (c) 2023 The Authors.