Intervention AUVs: The Next Challenge

While commercially available AUVs are routinely used in survey missions, a new set of applications exist which clearly demand intervention capabilities. The maintenance of: permanent underwater observatories, submerged oil wells, cabled sensor networks, pipes and the deployment and recovery of benthic stations are a few of them. These tasks are addressed nowadays using manned submersibles or work-class ROVs, equipped with teleoperated arms under human supervision. Although researchers have recently opened the door to future I-AUVs, a long path is still necessary to achieve autonomous underwater interventions. This paper reviews the evolution timeline in autonomous underwater intervention systems. Milestone projects in the state of the art are reviewed, highlighting their principal contributions to the field. To the best of the authors knowledge, only three vehicles have demonstrated some autonomous intervention capabilities so far: ALIVE, SAUVIM and GIRONA 500, being the last one the lightest one. In this paper GIRONA 500 I-AUV is presented and its software architecture discussed. Recent results in different scenarios are reported: 1) Valve turning and connector plugging/unplugging while docked to a subsea panel, 2) Free floating valve turning using learning by demonstration, and 3) Multipurpose free-floating object recovery. The paper ends discussing the lessons learned so far

I-AUV Docking and Panel Intervention at Sea

The use of commercially available autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) has increased during the last fifteen years. While they are mainly used for routine survey missions, there is a set of applications that nowadays can be only addressed by manned submersibles or work-class remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) equipped with teleoperated arms: the intervention applications. To allow these heavy vehicles controlled by human operators to perform intervention tasks, underwater structures like observatory facilities, subsea panels or oil-well Christmas trees have been adapted, making them more robust and easier to operate. The TRITON Spanish founded project proposes the use of a light-weight intervention AUV (I-AUV) to carry out intervention applications simplifying the adaptation of these underwater structures and drastically reducing the operational cost. To prove this concept, the Girona 500 I-AUV is used to autonomously dock into an adapted subsea panel and once docked perform an intervention composed of turning a valve and plugging in/unplugging a connector. The techniques used for the autonomous docking and manipulation as well as the design of an adapted subsea panel with a funnel-based docking system are presented in this article together with the results achieved in a water tank and at sea.This work was supported by the Spanish project DPI2014-57746-C3 (MERBOTS Project) and by Generalitat Valenciana under Grant GVA-PROMETEO/2016/066. The University of Girona wants to thank the SARTI group for their collaboration with the TRITON project

I-AUV Docking and Panel Intervention at Sea

The use of commercially available autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) has increased during the last fifteen years. While they are mainly used for routine survey missions, there is a set of applications that nowadays can be only addressed by manned submersibles or work-class remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) equipped with teleoperated arms: the intervention applications. To allow these heavy vehicles controlled by human operators to perform intervention tasks, underwater structures like observatory facilities, subsea panels or oil-well Christmas trees have been adapted, making them more robust and easier to operate. The TRITON Spanish founded project proposes the use of a light-weight intervention AUV (I-AUV) to carry out intervention applications simplifying the adaptation of these underwater structures and drastically reducing the operational cost. To prove this concept, the Girona 500 I-AUV is used to autonomously dock into an adapted subsea panel and once docked perform an intervention composed of turning a valve and plugging in/unplugging a connector. The techniques used for the autonomous docking and manipulation as well as the design of an adapted subsea panel with a funnel-based docking system are presented in this article together with the results achieved in a water tank and at sea.This work was supported by the Spanish project DPI2014-57746-C3 (MERBOTS Project) and by Generalitat Valenciana under Grant GVA-PROMETEO/2016/066. The University of Girona wants to thank the SARTI group for their collaboration with the TRITON project

Underwater Vehicles

For the latest twenty to thirty years, a significant number of AUVs has been created for the solving of wide spectrum of scientific and applied tasks of ocean development and research. For the short time period the AUVs have shown the efficiency at performance of complex search and inspection works and opened a number of new important applications. Initially the information about AUVs had mainly review-advertising character but now more attention is paid to practical achievements, problems and systems technologies. AUVs are losing their prototype status and have become a fully operational, reliable and effective tool and modern multi-purpose AUVs represent the new class of underwater robotic objects with inherent tasks and practical applications, particular features of technology, systems structure and functional properties

EM 2000 Microbathymetric and HYDROSWEEP DS-2 Bathymetric Surveying – a Comparison of Seafloor Topography at Porcupine Bank, west of Ireland

One of the latest discoveries in the world oceans are carbonate structures in the North-East Atlantic. In the frameworks of several European projects, the research vessel POLARSTERN and underwater robot VICTOR 6000 were engaged to explore these areas. The data described in this thesis were collected during the expedition ARK XIX/3 between 16 - 19th June 2003. Bathymetric and microbathymetric data in parts of the Pelagia Province, located on the northern Porcupine Bank, west of Ireland, were measured with two multibeam sonar systems deployed at different distances from the bottom. The four compared models come from a KONGSBERG SIMRAD EM 2000 multibeam sonar system and an ATLAS ELEKTRONIK HYDROSWEEP DS-2 multibeam sonar system. After necessary corrections of the data, digital terrain models were created, subtracted and correlated using appropriate software. This thesis begins with a description of the historical background of bathymetry, followed by a description of the principles of navigation and underwater navigation, inertial navigation systems, and the calibration of these systems. Systematic errors will be pointed out. It examines the measurement principles of the echo sounders used on the ARK XIX/3a expedition and accompanying necessary procedures, such as CTD measurements. A discussion of how the data are processed from raw data to edited results, and the effects of the errors, follows. One chapter is dedicated to a comparison and interpretation of the data. Sidescan, mosaic and PARASOUND data from the Hedge and Scarp Mounds are introduced as complementary information

Seabed fluid flow-related processes: evidence and quantification based on high-resolution imaging techniques and GIS analyses

This work provides new insights on different aspects of seabed fluid flow processes based on seafloor observations. The methods used entirely rely on ROV-based high-resolution imaging and mapping techniques. Optical data are used to produce visual maps of the seafloor, in the form of geo-referenced video- and photo-mosaics, whereas acoustic techniques allow mapping the micro-bathymetry of the seabed, as well as the signal reflectivity of the sediment surface and of the water column. This work presents three case studies, about two sites of seabed fluid flow: the Menez Gwen hydrothermal vent on the MAR and the REGAB pockmark in the Lower Congo Basin. On the technical side, some of the high-resolution techniques used in this thesis are not commonly used by the marine scientific community. This is particularly the case for large-area photo-mosaics. Although the interest in mosaicking is growing, there are still no tools freely and readily available to scientists to routinely construct large-area photo-mosaics. Therefore, this work presents a MATLAB toolbox for large-area photo-mosaicking (LAPM toolbox), which was developed as part of this thesis

The Hierarchic treatment of marine ecological information from spatial networks of benthic platforms

Measuring biodiversity simultaneously in different locations, at different temporal scales, and over wide spatial scales is of strategic importance for the improvement of our understanding of the functioning of marine ecosystems and for the conservation of their biodiversity. Monitoring networks of cabled observatories, along with other docked autonomous systems (e.g., Remotely Operated Vehicles [ROVs], Autonomous Underwater Vehicles [AUVs], and crawlers), are being conceived and established at a spatial scale capable of tracking energy fluxes across benthic and pelagic compartments, as well as across geographic ecotones. At the same time, optoacoustic imaging is sustaining an unprecedented expansion in marine ecological monitoring, enabling the acquisition of new biological and environmental data at an appropriate spatiotemporal scale. At this stage, one of the main problems for an effective application of these technologies is the processing, storage, and treatment of the acquired complex ecological information. Here, we provide a conceptual overview on the technological developments in the multiparametric generation, storage, and automated hierarchic treatment of biological and environmental information required to capture the spatiotemporal complexity of a marine ecosystem. In doing so, we present a pipeline of ecological data acquisition and processing in different steps and prone to automation. We also give an example of population biomass, community richness and biodiversity data computation (as indicators for ecosystem functionality) with an Internet Operated Vehicle (a mobile crawler). Finally, we discuss the software requirements for that automated data processing at the level of cyber-infrastructures with sensor calibration and control, data banking, and ingestion into large data portals.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Hyperspectral Imaging for Fine to Medium Scale Applications in Environmental Sciences

The aim of the Special Issue “Hyperspectral Imaging for Fine to Medium Scale Applications in Environmental Sciences” was to present a selection of innovative studies using hyperspectral imaging (HSI) in different thematic fields. This intention reflects the technical developments in the last three decades, which have brought the capacity of HSI to provide spectrally, spatially and temporally detailed data, favoured by e.g., hyperspectral snapshot technologies, miniaturized hyperspectral sensors and hyperspectral microscopy imaging. The present book comprises a suite of papers in various fields of environmental sciences—geology/mineral exploration, digital soil mapping, mapping and characterization of vegetation, and sensing of water bodies (including under-ice and underwater applications). In addition, there are two rather methodically/technically-oriented contributions dealing with the optimized processing of UAV data and on the design and test of a multi-channel optical receiver for ground-based applications. All in all, this compilation documents that HSI is a multi-faceted research topic and will remain so in the future