challenges and opportunities for underwater...
TRANSCRIPT
Challenges and Opportunities for Underwater Robotics
Dr. Yi GuoDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Stevens Institute of TechnologyEmail: [email protected]
In Collaboration with Dr. Brian Bingham at University of Hawaii
NSF Sponsored Workshop at AAAI Conference, Austin, Jan. 25, 2015
Challenge
• Recent deepwater horizon oil spill has posed great challenges to both robotics and ocean engineering communities
• It is challenging to estimate the extent of the underwater plume
• The challenges will continue to grow as energy production continues to happen in ever deeper water
Oil slick seen from NASA satellite. Source: Wikipedia
Opportunity• Utilizing advanced robotics
techniques to improve the capability of ocean robots in conducting autonomous cooperating tasks
• Filling the gap between new algorithmic approaches and field deployments that impact our ability to observe, explore and manage ocean resources
Contour plot of the selected ion monitoring detection from a mass spectrometer coupled with acoustic positioning. Pic. from Dr. B. Bingham at Univ. of Hawaii
Overall Objectives
• The development of advanced multi-robot cooperative deployment algorithms for oceanographicalapplications;
• The development of authentic dynamic models of operational ocean robots to integrate in advanced cooperative control algorithms;
• The implementation and integration of advanced algorithms on heterogeneous ocean robots, and experimental demonstration of the efficacy in real-world coastal environments
Algorithm Development
• Distributed dynamic plume tracking– Advection-diffusion equation to model oil
plume distribution
– Deploy multi-robots to dynamically track the plume front
– Nearest neighbor communication
• Challenges:– Incorporating plume dynamic model – Computational efficiency– Limited communication for multiple robots
Matlab Simulation
Towards Field Tests
• Challenges:– Environment and plume data– Transition between simulation and field tests– Sensing– Vehicle dynamics– Field deployment
Algorithm development Simulation validation
Simulation in Robot Simulator Controller laboratory test
Field tests
The Plume Model
Simulation in Field Robotics Lab Vehicle Software (FVS) Platform
Laboratory Experiment vs Field Test