Communication System Between the ROV and the USV’s “Edredon” Control Post

One of the tasks carried out by the operator from the Command Post (land or ship), who controls the unmanned surface vehicle (USV „Edredon”) is the protection of critical marine objects (ports, ships, container terminals, etc.). This task is often carried out by using a remote operated vehicle type ROV (unmanned underwater vehicle). This vehicle is transported on board the USV at the site of the planned underwater reconnaissance area. When USV reach the scheduled location, the USV operator switches to remote control of the ROV vehicle. The article discusses solving the problem of remote control of the underwater vehicle ROV from Command Post. The operator uses the Launch and Recovery (L&R) system on the USV to control the ROV ditching process from the USV deck. It then controls the movement of the ROV vehicle under water (images from cameras and data from sensors placed on the vehicle ROV are transmitted via USV to the Command Post). After completing the task, the ROV vehicle is lifted aboard the USV, which carries out the next task

Technical benefits and cultural barriers of networked Autonomous Undersea Vehicles

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 44-45).The research presented in this thesis examines the technical benefits to using a collaborative network of Autonomous Undersea Vehicles (AUVs) in place of individual vehicles. Benefits could be achieved in the areas of reduced power consumption, improved positional information and improved acoustic communication bandwidth. However, current culture of AUV development may impede this approach. The thesis uses the Object Process Methodology (OPM) and principles of System Architecture to trace the value of an AUV system from the scientist who benefits from the data to the vehicle itself. Sections 3 and 4 outline the needs for an AUV system as they currently exist and describe the key physics-based limitations of operations. Section 5 takes a broader look at the system goal as data delivery, not just the deployment of a vehicle, and introduces the concept of networked AUV. Section 6 describes a potential evolution of networked AUVs in increasing autonomy and collaboration. Finally, Section 7 examines AUV development cultures that could impede, or foster, networked vehicles.by Patrick L. Wineman.S.M

Diverse applications of advanced man-telerobot interfaces

Advancements in man-machine interfaces and control technologies used in space telerobotics and teleoperators have potential application wherever human operators need to manipulate multi-dimensional spatial relationships. Bilateral six degree-of-freedom position and force cues exchanged between the user and a complex system can broaden and improve the effectiveness of several diverse man-machine interfaces

Selection of UUV Type ROV Equipment and Cooperation System with USV "Edredon" in Protection Tasks of Ports and Critical Objects

The article presents some of the problems associated with the use of an unmanned underwater vehicle type ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) to cooperate with the USV (Unmanned Surface Vehicle) "Edredon" carrying out tasks related to the perimetric protection of seaports infrastructure and critical objects. The system remote control of the underwater vehicle, requires the appropriate structure of the system ensuring the cooperation of both vehicles and the selection of the special apparatus mounted on the ROV. The tasks carried out by the both vehicles have a very high impact on the hardware solutions and cooperation of USV with an unmanned underwater vehicle

Underwater Drone Architecture for Marine Digital Twin: Lessons Learned from SUSHI DROP Project

The ability to observe the world has seen significant developments in the last few decades, alongside the techniques and methodologies to derive accurate digital replicas of observed environments. Underwater ecosystems present greater challenges and remain largely unexplored, but the need for reliable and up-to-date information motivated the birth of the Interreg Italy-Croatia SUSHI DROP Project (SUstainable fiSHeries wIth DROnes data Processing). The aim of the project is to map ecosystems for sustainable fishing and to achieve this goal a prototype of an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV), named Blucy, has been designed and developed. Blucy was deployed during project missions for surveying the benthic zone in deep waters of the Adriatic Sea with non-invasive techniques compared to the use of trawl nets. This article describes the strategies followed, the instruments applied and the challenges to be overcome to obtain an accurately georeferenced underwater survey with the goal of creating a marine digital twin

Coverage and Connectivity in Three-Dimensional Networks

Most wireless terrestrial networks are designed based on the assumption that the nodes are deployed on a two-dimensional (2D) plane. However, this 2D assumption is not valid in underwater, atmospheric, or space communications. In fact, recent interest in underwater acoustic ad hoc and sensor networks hints at the need to understand how to design networks in 3D. Unfortunately, the design of 3D networks is surprisingly more difficult than the design of 2D networks. For example, proofs of Kelvin's conjecture and Kepler's conjecture required centuries of research to achieve breakthroughs, whereas their 2D counterparts are trivial to solve. In this paper, we consider the coverage and connectivity issues of 3D networks, where the goal is to find a node placement strategy with 100% sensing coverage of a 3D space, while minimizing the number of nodes required for surveillance. Our results indicate that the use of the Voronoi tessellation of 3D space to create truncated octahedral cells results in the best strategy. In this truncated octahedron placement strategy, the transmission range must be at least 1.7889 times the sensing range in order to maintain connectivity among nodes. If the transmission range is between 1.4142 and 1.7889 times the sensing range, then a hexagonal prism placement strategy or a rhombic dodecahedron placement strategy should be used. Although the required number of nodes in the hexagonal prism and the rhombic dodecahedron placement strategies is the same, this number is 43.25% higher than the number of nodes required by the truncated octahedron placement strategy. We verify by simulation that our placement strategies indeed guarantee ubiquitous coverage. We believe that our approach and our results presented in this paper could be used for extending the processes of 2D network design to 3D networks.Comment: To appear in ACM Mobicom 200

Pose Detection and Control of Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) Utilizing an Optical Detector Array

As part of the research for development of a leader-follower formation between unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), this study presents an optical feedback system for UUV navigation via an optical detector array. Capabilities of pose detection and control in a static-dynamic system (e.g. UUV navigation into a docking station) and a dynamic-dynamic system (e.g. UUV to UUV leader-follower system) are investigated. In both systems, a single light source is utilized as a guiding beacon for a tracker/follower UUV. The UUV uses an optical array consisting of photodiodes to receive the light field emitted from the light source. For UUV navigation applications, accurate pose estimation is essential. In order to evaluate the feasibility of underwater distance detection, the effective communication range between two platforms, i.e. light source and optical detector, and the optimum spectral range that allowed maximum light transmission are calculated. Based on the light attenuation in underwater, the geometry and dimensions of an optical detector array are determined, and the boundary conditions for the developed pose detection algorithms along with the error sources in the experiments are identified. As a test bed to determine optical array dimensions and size, a simulator, i.e. numerical software, is developed, where planar and curved array geometries of varying number of elements are analytically compared and evaluated. Results show that the curved optical detector array is able to distinguish 5 degree- of-freedom (DOF) motion (translation in x, y, z-axes and pitch and yaw rotations) with respect to a single light source. Analytical pose detection and control algorithms are developed for both static-dynamic and dynamic-dynamic systems. Results show that a 5 x 5 curved detector array with the implementation of SMC is reasonably sufficient for practical UUV positioning applications. The capabilities of an optical detector array to determine the pose of a UUV in 3-DOF (x, y and z-axes) are experimentally tested. An experimental platform consisting of a 5 x 5 photodiode array mounted on a hemispherical surface is used to sample the light field emitted from a single light source. Pose detection algorithms are developed to detect pose for steady-state and dynamic cases. Monte Carlo analysis is conducted to assess the pose estimation uncertainty under varying environmental and hardware conditions such as water turbidity, temperature variations in water and electrically-based noise. Monte Carlo analysis results show that the pose uncertainties (within 95% confidence interval) associated with x, y and z-axes are 0.78 m, 0.67 m and 0.56 m, respectively. Experimental results demonstrate that x, y and z-axes pose estimates are accurate to within 0.5 m, 0.2 m and 0.2 m, respectively