The Infona portal uses cookies, i.e. strings of text saved by a browser on the user's device. The portal can access those files and use them to remember the user's data, such as their chosen settings (screen view, interface language, etc.), or their login data. By using the Infona portal the user accepts automatic saving and using this information for portal operation purposes. More information on the subject can be found in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. By closing this window the user confirms that they have read the information on cookie usage, and they accept the privacy policy and the way cookies are used by the portal. You can change the cookie settings in your browser.
Recently, increasing efforts have been focused on the development and adoption of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for various applications. However, the GPS signals are usually unavailable, the vehicle dynamics is very uncertain, and the complicated vision based localization algorithms may not work well in the underwater environments. Hence, accurate and timely state estimation using low-cost...
Consider the two characteristics: (1) Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is a popular algorithm for autonomous underwater vehicle, but visual SLAM is significantly influenced by weak illumination. (2)Geomagnetism-aided navigation and gravity-aided navigation are equally important methods in the field of vehicle navigation, but both are affected heavily by time-varying noises and terrain...
The Singapore Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Challenge, dubbed as SAUVC, is an effort by the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society Singapore Chapter to engage and expose the tertiary students to the challenges of AUV design. The programme was started in 2013 and was originally intended to create awareness among the local students on the importance of underwater robotics and its relevance to Singapore. However,...
This paper summarizes the main accomplishments of the first year of the FP7 project “CADDY — Cognitive Autonomous Diving Buddy”. The main objective of the project is to replace a human buddy diver with an autonomous underwater vehicle and add an autonomous surface vehicle to improve monitoring, assistance, and safety of the diver's mission. While all envisioned objectives of the project are listed,...
JAMSTEC has been developing two-type autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs): a cruising AUV and a working AUV, since last October. These vehicles will perform carbon dioxide (CO2) observations and hydrothermal plume exploration up to depth of 3,000 meters. The cruising AUV (about 4 m long, 2 tons in weight) is equipped with three major observation devices: a multi-beam echo sounder, side-scan sonar,...
In this paper a vision-based algorithm for on-line estimation of position control errors in a guidance system for path tracking is presented. The algorithm uses techniques of pattern recognition, however with a high degree of morphological simplifications. The algorithm detects the path line stretch which is displayed in the actual frame, and estimates the slope of the line and its midpoint. Moreover,...
There are several approaches for 3 dimensional mapping of the seafloor in the actual colours, many of which require multiple cameras, elaborate algorithms and specially designed vehicles. In this paper a method is presented, which uses minimal equipment and simple algorithms for this task, while treating the data in a fully 3 dimensional way from input to output. Because of the reduced hardware demands,...
Visual maps of the seafloor should ideally provide the ability to measure individual features of interest in real units. Two-dimensional photomosaics cannot provide this capability without making assumptions that often fail over 3-D terrain, and are generally used for visualization, but not for measurement. Full 3-D structure can be recovered using stereo vision, structure from motion (SFM), or simultaneous...
This paper addresses the problem of AUV navigation by showing the feasibility of a stereo visual-inertial approach to odometry retrieval for an AUV. This information is intended as input for a complete SLAM system. After its classification among many other similar approaches in recent work is shown, the algorithm is described in detail. A number of experiments conducted on synthetic data show the...
Navigating an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is a difficult task. Dead-reckoning navigation is subject to unbounded error due to sensor inaccuracies and is inapplicable for mission durations longer than a few minutes. To limit the estimation errors a global referencing method has to be used. SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping) is such a method. It uses repeated recognition of significant...
This paper describes a positioning model of an autonomous underwater vehicle attaining an underwater target equipped with an acoustic buoy. The model combines acoustic and vision-based navigation principles. The acoustic guidance assumes a one-way asynchronous signal exchanging mode. A vision-based positioning employs log-polar transformations of camera images. A PID controller is used to change the...
This paper reports an overview of the navigation and control system design for the new Nereus hybrid underwater robotic vehicle (HROV). Vehicle performance during its first sea trials in November 2007 near Hawaii, and in May and June 2009 in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench is reported. During the latter expedition, the vehicle successfully performed scientific observation and sampling operations...
The use of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) for underwater tasks is a promising robotic field. These robots can carry visual inspection cameras. Besides serving the activities of inspection and mapping, the captured images can also be used to aid navigation and localization of the robots. In this context, this paper proposes an approach to mapping of underwater vehicles. Supposing the use of...
The use of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) for underwater tasks is a promising robotic field. These robots can carry visual inspection cameras. Besides serving the activities of inspection and mapping, the captured images can also be used to aid navigation and localization of the robots. Visual odometry is the process of determining the position and orientation of a robot by analyzing the associated...
This paper reports the application of vision based simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) to the problem of autonomous ship hull inspection by an underwater vehicle. The goal of this work is to automatically map and navigate the underwater surface area of a ship hull for foreign object detection and maintenance inspection tasks. For this purpose we employ a pose-graph SLAM algorithm using an...
This paper presents a novel sensing method for navigation of autonomous underwater vehicles, AUVs, through pipelines to conduct autonomous internal inspection. Unlike remotely operated pipe inspection robots, AUVs do not have an umbilical cable and so they can easily maneuver through bent sections of pipelines and the distance they can cover is not restricted by the length of the cable. Presently...
The last decade has witnessed the establishment of image processing as a viable means of aiding underwater navigation. However, many such systems are only implemented in pre-processing and offline due to their excessive computational demands. Real-time techniques often require special purpose hardware or impose limitations on the system to obtain real-time performance at the expense of accuracy. The...
The last generation of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) is being developed with intervention capabilities in mind. These capabilities will provide easy and early inspection and maintenance of subsea offshore structures. The technology developments that implies this upgrade comprise new techniques for subsea vehicle localization, including detection and estimation algorithms. A reliable technique...
Conclusion from previous I-AUV projects and separate research in navigation and docking were consolidated to form a guideline for autonomous underwater docking. The example of docking on intervention panel was chosen to show how the standard can be expanded to improve on the key factors: navigational precision, reliability and mechanics. Particular results are shown for localization techniques to...
We describe a navigation and coverage system based on unsupervised learning driven by visual input. Our objective is to allow a robot to remain continuously moving above a terrain of interest using visual feedback to avoid leaving this region. As a particular application domain, we are interested in doing this in open water, but the approach makes few domain-specific assumptions. Specifically, our...
Set the date range to filter the displayed results. You can set a starting date, ending date or both. You can enter the dates manually or choose them from the calendar.