Underwater Robots - Gianluca Antonelli.pdf

9.3 Experimental Set-Up at the Virginia Tech 235
9.3 Experimental Set-Up at the Virginia Tech
Figure 9.5 reports the small AUVs developed at the Virginia Polytechnic
Institute &State University toperform adaptive sampling with multiple underwater
vehicles. The AUVs have been designed in order to be very small
in size and relatively cheap [132].
Fig. 9.5. Platoon of AUVs developed at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute &State
University (courtesy of D. Stilwell)
One ofthe use of the platoon will be the adaptive sampling of environmental
processes, i.e., the mapping and tracking of marine processes. In [66],
C.J. Cannell and D.J. Stilwell compare two estimation methods in different
conditions, moreover, the benefit achieved using more than one vehicles is
also discussed. Reporting from [66], Figure 9.6 shows simulation results of
two AUVs estimating the center of mass of aneutral dye tracer.
In [229] some preliminary experimental results have been reported by
J. Petrich, C.A. Woolsey and D.J. Stilwell using one of the vehicles. However,
since absolute positions are required to prove the proposed algorithm, the
vehicle is commanded to move at the surface and its position is measured
with asampling time of 30 s.