Exploring the Blue Frontier with Cooperative Marine Robots
KAUST Research Conference on Robotics and Autonomy 2023
Speaker: Antonio M. Pascoal, Professor, IST / University of Lisbon
Abstract:
The last decade has witnessed tremendous progress in the development of marine technologies that are steadily affording scientists advanced equipment and methods for ocean exploration and exploitation. Recent advances in marine robotics, sensors, computers, communications, and information systems are being applied to the development of sophisticated technologies that will lead to safer, faster, and far more efficient ways of exploring the ocean frontier, especially in hazardous conditions. As part of this trend, there has been a surge of interest worldwide in the development of autonomous marine robots capable of roaming the oceans freely and collecting data at the surface of the ocean and underwater on an unprecedented scale. Representative examples are autonomous surface craft (ASC) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The mission scenarios envisioned call for the control of single or multiple AUVs, ASCs, and even Gliders acting in cooperation to execute challenging tasks without close supervision of human operators.
This talk is rooted in the general topic of cooperative motion planning, navigation, and control of marine vehicles, both from a theoretical and a practical perspective. The presentation builds upon practical developments and experiments. Examples of scientific missions with ASCs and AUVs, acting alone or in cooperation, set the stage for the main contents of the presentation. Especial emphasis is placed on the problem of operating vehicles for scientific ocean studies, habitat mapping in complex 3D scenarios, geotechnical surveying, underwater radioactivity mapping, inspection of offshore wind infrastructures, tele-presence at sea, and ocean literacy. From a theoretical standpoint, a number of challenging problems are introduced in the general area of networked systems subjected to stringent communication constraints. Namely, i) cooperative motion control using event-driven control and communications and ii) range-based multiple target localization and tracking using tools from the areas of optimal motion planning and estimation theory. The results obtained are
illustrated with videos from actual field tests with multiple marine robots exchanging information over bimodal acoustic and optical networks.
The core material presented in this talk was obtained in the scope of the following EU-funded projects:
• MORPH (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/...)
• WiMUST (http://www.wimust.eu/)
• H2020 EU Marine Robotics Research Infrastructure Network (https://www.eumarinerobots.eu/)
• BlueRoses ( https://bluerosesproject.wixsite.com/...)
• RAMONES (https://ramones-project.eu/)
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Conference:
The KAUST Research Conference on Robotics and Autonomy 2023 (RobotoKAUST 2023)
Organizing Committee:
Eric Feron, Shinkyu Park, Raquel Peixoto
Date:
08-10 May 2023
Venue:
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia
Website:
https://cemse.kaust.edu.sa/robotokaust
Organization team and volunteers:
Mohamad T. Shahab, Renzo Caballero, Angelica Coronado Preciado, Kuat Telegenov, Mohammed Aldosari, Katja Gorenflot, Jumana Alashi, Hanouf Al-Hattan, Rehab Ashri, Marta Golem, Adeel Akhtar, Jun Chen, Abdullah Alharthi, Altayeb-Moh'd A. Al-Shedayfat, Amin Almozel, Nawaf Alotaibi, Shatha Alzahrani, Lucas Câmara Dantas Bezerra, Salman Ghori, Arman Ibrayeva, Anton Kim, Bilal Maassarani, Obadah Wali, Joanna M. Ogieglo, Norah Alghamdi
The KAUST Robotics, Intelligent Systems, and Control (RISC) Lab:
https://cemse.kaust.edu.sa/risclab