lateral thrusters

[scubersteve]

As I wander around this forum, gathering info and inspiriation from everyone's designs, I notice very few (if any) are utilizing lateral thrusters.
I would have thought that the ability to pan around/past an object of interest would have been important.

So who out there IS using lateral thrusters and how is it working out for you?

[KR2_Diving]

I think what you may find is that few are using "lateral" thrusters, but some are able to achieve the same motion using vectored thrust. (Ok, so I can't speak for everyone, but that is what I am doing...) Others are able to pan their camera in a dome housing to achieve the same affect as well...

That being said, a lateral thruster is not a bad thing to have. It really comes down to how you want to design your control system and what tasks you want your ROV to achieve.

For your reference, I plan on using my ROV for scouting out new Scuba Diving sites. For that, I wanted the highest level of manoeuvrability as possible, so I have decided to mimic some of the thruster set-ups that the professional / commercial grade ROVs use, which is a vectored thrust arrangement. This took a bit more programming then I originally anticipated, but i was able to achieve the affect I was looking for.

Best of luck with your build!

Ryan
"KR2_Diving"

[m_g]

I will be using a lateral thruster, as well as paired opposing thrusters for spin function. It all works on the bench, but I am still in the build stage. Stay tuned!

[scubersteve]

You should really post some pictures of your build.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to see it.

[sthone]

The lateral thruster was one of the best add ons I did to my Seafox. I find the lateral thruster very useful for keeping an object in view of the camera and the ability to strafe is also very useful when trying to position the manipulator for picking up objects.

-Steve