A Ground Control Station for Collaborative Unmanned Surface Vehicles

[ES] El Centro de Control de Tierra (CCT) es uno de los elementos imprescindibles para la supervisión y control de vehículos autónomos que realizan misiones complejas. En la actualidad cada vez hay más aplicaciones donde se utilizan múltiples vehículos autónomos y el tradicional Centro de Control está evolucionando para ser capaz de gestionar diversos vehículos y operadores. Este artículo presenta las características más relevantes de un CCT adaptable y versátil, especialmente diseñado para que un equipo heterogéneo de operadores puedan monitorizar y supervisar el funcionamiento colaborativo de un conjunto heterogéneo de vehículos autónomos. Entre estas características destacan la posibilidad de, según las necesidades de los operadores y de la misión, 1) reconfigurar cuál (y cómo) es la información que se muestra de cada vehículo a cada operador, 2) definir alarmas que atraigan la atención de los operadores ante determinados eventos (y liberen su carga de trabajo mientras estos no se den) y 3) re-asignar en tiempo real la gestión de los vehículos a los diferentes operadores. Para alcanzarlas, se ha realizado un cuidadoso diseño de la arquitectura software del CCT, que se detalla en el artículo y que se encuentra formada por: un módulo de comunicaciones; un módulo planificador de alto nivel; un módulo (replicable en tantos equipos como se desee) de monitorización y supervisión de vehículos; y tantos módulos comandadores como vehículos diferentes existan en la misión. Este CCT ha sido desarrollado dentro del proyecto de investigación SALACOM (Sistema Autónomo de Localización y Actuación ante Contaminantes en el Mar), en el que dos barcos autónomos maniobran de forma colaborativa para desplegar una barrera para la contención de un vertido contaminante en el mar ydonde la incorporación del operador en la supervisión y control de las maniobras de los vehículos es un requisito imprescindible para dar seguridad y confianza a la operación realizada. Finalmente, se presenta un caso de uso del Centro de Control de Tierra donde se realiza una maniobra de seguimiento entre dos vehículos autónomos de superficie.[EN] The Ground Control Station (GCS) is one of the essential elements to supervise and control autonomous vehicles performing complex missions. The increasing number of systems that involve multiple autonomous vehicles is making traditional GCSs evolve to let them handle dierent vehicles and operators. In this article, we present the more relevant properties of a versatile adaptable GCS that has been especially designed to let multiple operators, each using a dierent computer equipment, be in charge of controlling a heterogeneous team of autonomous vehicles. Its main properties are the possibility of 1) reconfiguring which information is displayed to each operator, 2) defining alarms to draw the operators attention when required, and 3) re-assigning, in real-time, the vehicles to dierent operators. These properties are supported by a distributed design of the GCS software architecture, presented in the paper and consistent of: a communication module, a high level planner, replicable monitoring and supervising units, and as many commanders as vehicles within each mission. This GCS has been developed within SALACOM (an autonomous system for locating and acting against sea spills), where two Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) cooperate to collect a sea spill under the supervision of several operators that are responsible of the security of the mission. Finally, this paper also presents a case of use of the GCS within a real-world experiment involving two USVs performing leader-follower formation maneouvres.Los autores del art´ıculo quieren agradecer al Ministerio de Econom´ıa y Competitividad español su apoyo a través del proyecto SALACOM (DPI2013-46665-C2-1-R).Bonache Seco, J.; Dormido Canto, J.; Montalvo Martinez, M.; López-Orozco, J.; Besada Portas, E.; De La Cruz Garcia, J. (2017). Centro de Control de Tierra para Colaboración de Vehículos Autónomos Marinos. Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial. 15(1):1-11. https://doi.org/10.4995/riai.2017.8737OJS111151ASTM, 2017. Committee F41 on unmanned maritime vehicle systems (umvs). 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