Deployment of a persistent underwater acoustic sensor network: The CommsNet17 Experience

This paper presents the experimental activities performed by the NATO STO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) during the CommsNet17 trial where a persistent Underwater Acoustic Sensor Network (UASN) was deployed. The CommsNet17 trial was held from the 27th of November to the 6th of December in the Gulf of La Spezia (IT), close to the CMRE premises, using the CMRE Littoral Ocean Observatory Network (LOON) as one of its key components. A network consisting of up to eleven nodes was deployed, including static and mobile assets. Various aspects related to persistent UASNs were addressed, including autonomous and distributed network discovery and node configuration, node localisation and navigation, self-adjustment of the network topology in support to the assigned tasks, underwater docking, wireless battery recharging and data offloading. The collected results show that the employed solutions were able to successfully complete all these tasks, thus demonstrating the effective deployment of a persistent, distributed and ad-hoc UASN

Interoperability in a Heterogeneous Team of Search and Rescue Robots

Search and rescue missions are complex operations. A disaster scenario is generally unstructured, time‐varying and unpredictable. This poses several challenges for the successful deployment of unmanned technology. The variety of operational scenarios and tasks lead to the need for multiple robots of different types, domains and sizes. A priori planning of the optimal set of assets to be deployed and the definition of their mission objectives are generally not feasible as information only becomes available during mission. The ICARUS project responds to this challenge by developing a heterogeneous team composed by different and complementary robots, dynamically cooperating as an interoperable team. This chapter describes our approach to multi‐robot interoperability, understood as the ability of multiple robots to operate together, in synergy, enabling multiple teams to share data, intelligence and resources, which is the ultimate objective of ICARUS project. It also includes the analysis of the relevant standardization initiatives in multi‐robot multi‐domain systems, our implementation of an interoperability framework and several examples of multi‐robot cooperation of the ICARUS robots in realistic search and rescue missions

Chapter Interoperability in a Heterogeneous Team of Search and Rescue Robots

Search and rescue missions are complex operations. A disaster scenario is generally unstructured, time‐varying and unpredictable. This poses several challenges for the successful deployment of unmanned technology. The variety of operational scenarios and tasks lead to the need for multiple robots of different types, domains and sizes. A priori planning of the optimal set of assets to be deployed and the definition of their mission objectives are generally not feasible as information only becomes available during mission. The ICARUS project responds to this challenge by developing a heterogeneous team composed by different and complementary robots, dynamically cooperating as an interoperable team. This chapter describes our approach to multi‐robot interoperability, understood as the ability of multiple robots to operate together, in synergy, enabling multiple teams to share data, intelligence and resources, which is the ultimate objective of ICARUS project. It also includes the analysis of the relevant standardization initiatives in multi‐robot multi‐domain systems, our implementation of an interoperability framework and several examples of multi‐robot cooperation of the ICARUS robots in realistic search and rescue missions