Authors: Bayat, Mohammadreza; Aguiar, A. Pedro; Vanni, Francesco

Abstract: In the cooperative target tracking maneuvering a group of vehicles is required to follow a target while maintaining a desired formation in space. For that effect, the trajectory of the target has to be estimated (for example by one of the vehicles in formation), translated into mission codes (to save communication resources) and transmitted to the other vehicles. This paper addresses the online mission planning task of converting the absolute or relative position data available from the positioning system installed on the target (e.g. INS, GPS) into a set of lines and constant curvature arcs. Two algorithms are proposed: one using a polynomial fitting and a more complex one using an Interactive Multiple-Model Kalman filter. Simulation results using experimental data and a set of simulated data corrupted with noise and data loss are presented and discussed.

Keywords: Cooperative control under severe communication constraints

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00028

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: de Almeida Fernandes, Daniel; Donha, Decio Crisol

Abstract: This work presents a proposal of Navigation and Control System (NCS) to a Semi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (SAUV) under construction at the University of São Paulo (USP). Three horizontal Degrees-of-Freedom (DoF) are controlled to track reference trajectories determined by a support station, responsible for the guidance of the vehicle. The NCS is basically a Linear Quadratic (LQ) Trajectory Tracker fed by an estimated state vector, with some other interesting functionalities included. All results were obtained by computational simulations with a nonlinear model of the plant of the SAUV driven by the NCS.

Keywords: Navigation, guidance and control of autonomus surface and underwater vehicles; Offshore systems modelling and control; Thrusters and propulsion systems

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00040

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Galeazzi, Roberto; Blanke, Mogens; Poulsen, Niels Kjølstad

Abstract: Real-time detection of parametric roll is still an open issue that is gathering an increasing attention. A first generation warning systems, based on guidelines and polar diagrams, showed their potential to face issues like long-term prediction and risk assessment. This paper presents a second generation warning system the purpose of which is to provide the master with an onboard system able to trigger an alarm when parametric roll is likely to happen within the immediate future. A detection scheme is introduced, which is able to issue a warning within five roll periods after a resonant motion started. After having determined statistical properties of the signals at hand, a detector based on the generalised log-likelihood ratio test (GLRT) is designed to look for variation in signal power. The ability of the detector to trigger alarms when parametric roll is going to onset is evaluated on two sets of experimental data, covering both regular and irregular seas in a model basin.

Keywords: Roll damping; Information systems and methods

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00051

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Maurelli, Francesco; Mallios, Angelos; Ribas, David; Ridao, Pere; Petillot, Yvan

Abstract: This paper presents a sonar-based localization approach for an autonomous under-water vehicle, valid both in structured and unstructured environments. The presented system is based on a particle fifilter algorithm to represent the vehicle state and it uses a mechanically scanned imaging sonar to acquire sensor data from the environment. A particular attention is given to the calculation of the likelihood from the sonar data, where two possible ways are presented and to the experimental results. The proposed system was validated both in simulation and in trials, involving the autonomous underwater vehicle Ictineu. The trials took place in a abandoned marina, for a trajectory long more than 600 m.

Keywords: Navigation, guidance and control of autonomus surface and underwater vehicles

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00007

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Zizzari, Alessandro Antonio; Indiveri, Giovanni; Bibuli, Marco; Bruzzone, Gabriele; Caccia, Massimo

Abstract: This paper addresses the problem of motion control in two-dimensional space for under-actuated unmanned surface vehicles. A guidance motion control law that guarantees bounded velocity commands is derived at the kinematics level. The main difference with respect to the other approaches known in the literature is to be found in the definition of the error variables to be driven to zero. Besides a brief explanation of the proposed approach to solve the guidance problem for under-actuated systems, numerical and experimental results carried out with the Charlie USV are reported.

Keywords: Surface ship track control; Ship autopilots; Navigation, guidance and control of autonomus surface and underwater vehicles

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00016

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Glotzbach, Thomas; Schneider, Matthias; Otto, Peter

Abstract: In this paper we suggest a procedure to perform path planning for coordinated target tracking, performed by a heterogeneous team of unmanned marine vehicles. This work was performed in the framework of the research project GREX (IST-Project-No. 035223) which aims for the realisation of several mission scenarios including cooperative marine vehicles. In one scenario, several vehicles have to follow a fish tagged with an electronic device submitting acoustic signals. The vehicles must determine the position of the fish by triangulation of the signals in order to get close to the fish and to download collected data from the device which are of importance for marine scientists. While the following of a defined target is relative intuitive in land and air scenarios, specific problems arise in the maritime environment. The change of heading is usually slow for marine vehicles. As soon as underwater vehicles participate, all communication concerning coordination has to pass the acoustic communication channel which is narrowband and error-prone. The employment of a heterogeneous team requires the consideration of limitations and security issues given by different vehicles providers. In general it can be stated that online replanning of the mission plans is not really desired by most providers, as current vehicles were designed for single autonomous behaviour. Also it must be kept in mind that the employed vehicles will not use any range measurement sensors. For this reason, it is necessary to plan collision-free paths which allow the establishment of a close formation. This ensures collision avoidance between the vehicles and good working conditions for the Team Navigation Module.

Keywords: Navigation, guidance and control of autonomus surface and underwater vehicles; Cooperative navigation and control of Multiple Marine Vehicle Systems; Cooperative control under severe communication constraints

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00057

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Morgado, Marco; Oliveira, Paulo Jorge; Silvestre, Carlos

Abstract: This paper presents a performance analysis for Ultra-Short Base Line (USBL) aided Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) resorting to lower bounds for the covariance of the estimators based on the Posterior Cramer-Rao Bounds (PCRB) theory. In this framework, the vehicle interrogates acoustic transponders located in known positions of the mission area. Two distinct design methodologies are presented: one that estimates essentially the position of the origin of the Body attached coordinate frame with respect to Earth, and the latter that tracks the position of the transponders in the Body-fixed coordinate frame. The performance of both systems is compared in simulation leading to the conclusion that it is equivalent. Their efficiency is also assessed in simulation by verifying that both systems perform near the PCRB.

Keywords: Navigation, guidance and control of autonomus surface and underwater vehicles; Sensors and sensor integration in autonomus robots; Information systems and methods

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00002

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Engel, Robert

Abstract:

Keywords: Cooperative navigation and control of Multiple Marine Vehicle Systems; Architectures for teams of robotic marine vehicles

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00065

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Saúde, João; Aguiar, A. Pedro

Abstract: This paper addresses the problem of underwater navigation, using a single beacon (or a transponder). We propose a solution to estimate the underwater vehicle position in the presence of unknown ocean currents. The main idea is to combine the dead-reckoning information with multiple range measurements taken at different instants of time from the vehicle to a single beacon. Then, applying a multilateration based algorithm and using a Kalman filter, the unknown velocity of ocean current and a more accurate estimation of vehicle's position is estimated. The stability and convergence of the position estimation error are analysed taken explicitly into account the presence of ocean currents, disturbances, measurement noise and discretization errors. Simulation results are presented and discussed. In particular, we show that the implementation of the Kalman filter to estimate the ocean current is crucial to achieve convergence of the estimated position.

Keywords: Navigation, guidance and control of autonomus surface and underwater vehicles; Sensors and sensor integration in autonomus robots

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00048

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Cavalcante Agostinho, Adriana; Moratelli, Lázaro, Jr.; Tannuri, Eduardo Aoun; Morishita, Helio Mitio

Abstract: The technique of Dynamic Positioning (DP) consists on keeping the position and heading of a vessel by the use of active thrusters. In Brazil, the offshore oil industry follows the recent tendency of performing several operations aided by DP systems, such as prospection, drilling, offloading and others. Currently, the DPS are based on conventional controllers (PD + Kalman Filter). This paper proposes the application of a controller based on nonlinear sliding mode control technique to the dynamic positioning of a floating vessel, as well as some simulations and experimental validation results.

Keywords: Offshore systems modelling and control; Thrusters and propulsion systems

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00037

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Omerdic, Edin

Abstract: This paper describes the development process of Smart ROVLATIS, from initial design concepts to test trials. Smart ROVLATIS is a novel, multi-mode of operation marine robotics vehicle for operational flexibility in high-resolution near seabed survey from shallow inshore waters out to the continental shelf edge. The vehicle can operate in surface-tow mode, surface-thrusted mode and ROV operation mode. The main features include a state-of-the-art navigation suite, patent-pending synchronisation of sonar (multibeam, sidescan, DVL) and advanced control system with superior performance (including built-in autotuning of low-level controllers, accurate dynamic positioning in presence of waves and ocean currents, thruster fault-tolerant control in 6 DOF and accurate automatic way-point navigation). The vehicle can be used as a target platform in various scenarios (research and scientific projects, inspections, seabed survey missions, vision experiments etc.).

Keywords: Navigation, guidance and control of autonomus surface and underwater vehicles; Control of remotely operated vehicles (ROVs); Thrusters and propulsion systems

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00056

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Ferreira, Fausto; Veruggio, Gianmarco; Caccia, Massimo; Bruzzone, Gabriele

Abstract: This paper focus on evaluating the possibility of using Speeded Up Feature Transform (SURF) features (Bay et al. (2006)) as optical features to be tracked in different applications, such as the speed estimation or the SLAM (or the more general dead reckoning) of an underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV). In particular, SURF-based system performance has been compared to results obtained with a laser-triangulation optical-correlation system using a batch of data collected in typical operat- ing conditions with the Romeo ROV. Although conven- tional techniques based on automatic extraction of high local variance templates and correlation-based tracking demonstrated their effectiveness in speed estimation, the combination with SURF-based techniques dramatically increases the reliability of the data association process for SLAM and mosaicing applications.

Keywords: Control of remotely operated vehicles (ROVs); Sensors and sensor integration in autonomus robots

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00043

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Ohtsu, Kohei

Abstract: The first parts of this paper describe the statistical time series analysis of ship’s motions. The actual time series data are identified by the uni and multi-variate autoregressive models whose orders are determined by Akaike’s Information Criterion(AIC). Various functions to analyse the ship’s motions are defined in time and frequency domains and some salient features of ship’s motions are derived from the time series data of the actual ship’s motions. The latter half parts are contributed to the control problems of ship’s heading to the given course and tracking ones along the given line and the regulation of main engine propeller rpm. All methods are corroborated by actual experiments on board.

Keywords: Surface ship track control; Ship autopilots; Intelligent marine control systems

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00001

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: None

Abstract:

Keywords:

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.90002

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Häusler, Andreas Johannes; Ghabcheloo, Reza; Pascoal, Antonio M.; Aguiar, A. Pedro; Kaminer, Isaac

Abstract:

Keywords: Navigation, guidance and control of autonomus surface and underwater vehicles

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00060

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Kalwa, Joerg

Abstract: The GREX Project – one of the few collaborating R&D initiatives, centered around Autonomous Marine Vehicles, and which are co-funded by the European Union within the 6th framework, is about to end. It started in June 2006 and faces its final evaluation in October 2009. “Grex” is the Latin word for a group or flock and for the first time ever a team of heterogeneous unmanned vehicles perform a coordinated, cooperative mission whereby each vehicle plays the role of a sophisticated node in a network. This presentation will give insight about the solutions to the challenging and ambitious goals of the project which sets a true milestone in AUV capabilities. The motivations behind a multiple-vehicles mission are obvious. Multiple vehicles allow surveying wider areas in less time while simultaneously obtaining time and space resolutions that are otherwise unachievable. Combining pre-existing vehicles into a team makes research more effective and will lead to completely new applications. Systems intended for searching operations could re-direct vehicles equipped with manipulators in order to refine research results. Some systems could watch other systems at work to record the operations using video or they could serve as navigation aids or communication relay stations. The key thrust of the research and development effort is to create a conceptual framework to coordinate a group of preexisting marine robotic vehicles in order to cooperate towards a common goal. Activities within the project span from the intuitive planning of a multiple-vehicle mission to its properly controlled execution in the real world. It contained the creation of theoretical and practical tools for multiple vehicle cooperation, bridging the gap between concept and practice. This paper is an introduction into the GREX project with emphasis on the system approach and some selected results. Furthermore it shows opportunities how to convert a general vehicle into a team player.

Keywords: Architectures for teams of robotic marine vehicles; Cooperative navigation and control of Multiple Marine Vehicle Systems; Cooperative control under severe communication constraints

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00058

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Orsenigo, Francesco; Sarantakos, Kostantinos

Abstract: A significant challenge of underwater exploration is related to the difficulty of building a comprehensive map of the explored area during the very course of the operation. Whether the underwater vehicle is controlled by a human operator or by a computer, without a visual map of the whole area it is harder to quickly adjust the course of the mission to the explored environment. A proof-of-concept system we developed employs a phase correlation algorithm and a bottom looking camera to estimate the motion of the vehicle and mosaic the camera frames in real time. The steps leading from the proof-of-concept program to a complete real-time mosaicking application are discussed. In addition, three important improvements are explicitly presented related to relative altitude recognition, mosaic navigation GUI and optimal overlap estimation.

Keywords: Information systems and methods; Sensors and sensor integration in autonomus robots; Navigation, guidance and control of autonomus surface and underwater vehicles

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00044

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Miskovic, Nikola; Bibuli, Marco; Caccia, Massimo; Bruzzone, Gabriele; Vukic, Zoran

Abstract: This paper demonstrates the use of self-oscillation identification experiments for tuning heading and line following controllers for marine vehicles. The identification by use of self-oscillations (IS-O) has been developed for general LTI systems and for a class of nonlinear systems and it was used for tuning guidance controllers. The guidance controllers have been tuned using the results from IS-O experiments. Heading controller algorithm that gives smooth control output is presented. The line following controller generates reference heading as output. The described methodology is applied to autonomous catamaran Charlie and the experimental results are presented in the paper. It has been demonstrated that IS-O method gives good results in field conditions and that it is time conservative. All algorithms and results presented here are a result of joint work of researchers at the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Genova and the University of Zagreb.

Keywords: Navigation, guidance and control of autonomus surface and underwater vehicles; Surface ship track control

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00017

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: Bibuli, Marco; Parodi, Olivier; Lapierre, Lionel; Bruzzone, Gabriele; Caccia, Massimo

Abstract: The problem of an unmanned surface vehicle following another vessel, both underwater or on the surface, without having any a priori information about its path is addressed in this paper. Theoretically the problem is solved extending nonlinear Lyapunov-based control techniques to the case of a master-slave vehicle formation, introducing a virtual controlled degree of freedom for the target to be followed on the path. In order to validate the proposed approach for different classes of vehicles, two typical operational cases are considered: i ) a slave USV, acting as a communication relay, is required to remain over the vertical of a master AUV; ii) a slave USV is required to follow the path of a master USV at a desired range, for instance, for collecting bathymetric profiles with two different sensors. Experiments on the AUV-USV case study are performed in the multi-vehicle simulation environment Thetis, developed by CNRS-LIRMM considering a joined mission of the Taipan AUV and Charlie USV. At sea trials will be carried out with the CNR Charlie and ALANIS USVs, in Spring 2009, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in the USV-USV case.

Keywords: Cooperative navigation and control of Multiple Marine Vehicle Systems; Cooperative control under severe communication constraints; Navigation, guidance and control of autonomus surface and underwater vehicles

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.00015

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009

Authors: None

Abstract:

Keywords:

Identifier: 10.3182/20090916-3-BR-3001.90001

Conference: 8th IFAC International Conference on Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft

Location: Casa Grande Hotel, Brazil

Start Date: Wed Sep 16 2009 - End Date: Fri Sep 18 2009