UnderSea Robot

This project, for Schilling Robotics Systems, entailed the design of the control room environment (user interface, control hardware, ergonomics) for the operation of an undersea vehicle. My role in the project involved the design of the user interface and the coding of a working simulation allowing the pilot to navigate the "fish" in an artificial 3D undersea world.

To develop the prototype, I built a limited 3D scene using Infiniti 3D. I then recorded multiple paths through the scene simultaneously recording the view from seven different cameras. After exporting the different paths as pict sequences, I was able to import them into Macromedia Director to build an interactive simulation allowing the user to switch amongst seven different camera views while "moving" through the scene with the "fish". This allowed us to get a very clear idea of the role of overlay graphics for compass heading, pitch, roll, yaw, depth as well as various forms of alarms and alerts.