Use Flash and FMS to Control a Submarine
By: Stefan Richter
And now for something completely different. Have you ever thought about riding a submarine? Or how about simply controlling it, RC style? Well now you can and you can do it in style via Flash and FMS.
On Fosters.co.uk riders can control a marine ROV (remotely operated vehicle) which is more commonly used for commercial exploratory underwater operations. The ROV is in a 100,000 litre (roughly 26,000 US gallon) tank at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth.
The whole system is built almost entirely using Adobe products. Flash Media Interactive Server sits at the centre of the set up. In addition to serving the video streams that are broadcast from Flash Media Encoder, FMIS carries messages back and forth between the clients and our on-location software. The on-location software is an AIR application which handles queuing and translates the riders’ actions into commands that are being send directly to the submarine through a serial connection.
This must be the most widely accessible use of ROV technology to date!
About the creators: JustAddTonic are a digital agency that specialise in emerging and non traditional interactive media. They were contacted by Play, to create a website that allows users to ‘ride’ a submarine in real time and you can see the result here (registration required - but worth it).
