The European Project GREX: Coordination and Control of ...

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Fig. 3: Scenario drawing: marine habitat mapping The scientific mission scenario for marine habitat mapping proposed here was greatly influenced by and aims to automate and improve “classical” procedures that are normally used by marine scientists. The key ideas can be explained by referring to figure 3. For simplicity of exposition, we start by focusing on the ASV/ROV ensemble in the figures, where the ROV is connected to the ASV through a thin umbilical for fast data transmission. In this scenario, the ASV executes a lawn mowing manoeuvre above the seabed automatically, while the ROV executes a similar manoeuvre in cooperation with the ASV. Using this set-up, the ROV transmits pictures of the seabed back to the support ship (and thus to the scientist in charge) via a radio link installed on-board the ASV. A number of AUVs stay dormant either on the seabed or at the sea surface. Upon detection of interesting features on the seabed by the scientist in charge, a signal is sent to a selected member of the AUV fleet (via an acoustic communication link installed on-board the ASV), to dispatch it to the spot detected so as to map the surrounding region in great detail. Meanwhile, the ASV/ROV ensemble continues to execute the lawn mowing manoeuvre in search of other sites of interest. With the methodology proposed, sites that are interesting from an ecological viewpoint are easily detected along the trajectory and those sites are selectively mapped in high resolution. To execute the challenging mission above, a number of autonomous vehicles must work in cooperation, under high level human supervision. This entails the development of advanced systems for coordinated motion control and navigation in the presence of severe underwater communication constraints, together with the respective software and hardware architectures. 6
Especially this scenario is also relevant for military application as it is directly related to a Search-Classify-Map mission of a coastal region using various sensors. The vision of an AUV, which systematically maps an area while processing data on board and activating an identification or mine disposal vehicle on demand, is also incorporated in this use case. The Challenge In summary the overall challenge and necessary result of the project is to establish and realize basic technologies for networked and cooperating heterogeneous unmanned marine vehicles: • A user-interface with underlying middleware to plan, check and distribute a coordinated mission for heterogeneous objects – and for post mission analysis, • A generic control system for coordinated control of multiple objects in an uncertain environment including aspects of mission alterations on the fly and triggered action, • A swarm navigation solution which enables team members to estimate the position within the swarm as basis for coordinated control and communication network, • A generic communication middleware, which enables heterogeneous vehicles to communicate with each other by LAN, radio and underwater acoustic communication, • Life sea trials to validate performance of the result shall conclude the project. 4. The Consortium and Share of Work The Consortium is composed of 9 Partners which share the work under coordination of the German company ATLAS ELEKTRONIK GmbH. GREX will start with a short definition phase. The Instituto do Mar at the University of the Azores, which is dedicated to biological research in the underwater domain, is in charge to define scenarios and requirements, from which development and trials will be deducted. Scientific Methodical Analysis and Research will mainly be performed by the Institute of Robotics of the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) (Portugal) and the Technische Universität Ilmenau, Faculty of Computer Science and Automation in Germany. Both Institutes combine their theoretical backgrounds to achieve the ambitious goals. The Bulgarian SME Sciant, experts in embedded systems and communications, will develop the middleware for inter-process and inter-vehicle communication as well as for dynamic networking. 7
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The European Project GREX: Coordination and Control of ...

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