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Proposal for remote-controlled vehicle assigned for operations in conditions hazardous to human lives is presented. This vehicle is equipped with remote control system and surroundings observation and visualization system. In this paper, a problem of the vehicle nearest area map building based on additional devices is considered. The vehicle is equipped with SICK LMS lasers, inclinometer and radars...
Given the tethered aerial robot problem, in this paper we investigate a multi-agent extension considering a chain of two underactuated flying robots. Our goal is to independently control the elevations (angles) of the two links (or, equivalently, the Cartesian position of the last robot) and their internal stress. For this purpose we theoretically prove the dynamic feedback linearizability of the...
We consider a scenario where the aim of a group of agents is to perform the optimal coverage of a region according to a sensory function. In particular, centroidal Voronoi partitions have to be computed. The difficulty of the task is that the sensory function is unknown and has to be reconstructed on line from noisy measurements. Hence, estimation and coverage needs to be performed at the same time...
This paper addresses the problem of perception for autonomous vehicle navigation in real environments. Integrity safe navigation of autonomous vehicles in unknown environments poses a traversability problem. We are interested in the integrity-safe navigation in unknown environments. Safe navigation is a task that depends on the knowledge of the surrounding environment and the vehicle dynamics. Classical...
Efficient estimation of obstacles is a crucial component in autonomous vehicle navigation. Fusing stereo vision and laser scan data is a widely used approach for obstacle detection and navigation. Stereo vision can detect obstacles and the ground. Planar laser range finders can detect obstacles, but false positives occur when the scans collide with the ground. This paper proposes an algorithm for...
We present an end-to-end framework for realizing fully automated gait learning for a complex underwater legged robot. Using this framework, we demonstrate that a hexapod flipper-propelled robot can learn task-specific control policies purely from experience data. Our method couples a state-of-the-art policy search technique with a family of periodic low-level controls that are well suited for underwater...
Odometry is a safety on-board subsystem of modern railway Automatic Train Protection (ATP) and Automatic Train Control (ATC) and his main task is the estimation of instantaneous speed and the travelled distance of the railway vehicle. An accurate estimation is mandatory, because an error (residual) on the train position may lead to a dangerous overestimation of the distance available for braking....
There have been increasing interests in the robotics community in building smaller and more agile autonomous micro aerial vehicles (MAVs). In particular, the monocular visual-inertial system (VINS) that consists of only a camera and an inertial measurement unit (IMU) forms a great minimum sensor suite due to its superior size, weight, and power (SWaP) characteristics. In this paper, we present a tightly-coupled...
This paper presents an intention-aware online planning approach for autonomous driving amid many pedestrians. To drive near pedestrians safely, efficiently, and smoothly, autonomous vehicles must estimate unknown pedestrian intentions and hedge against the uncertainty in intention estimates in order to choose actions that are effective and robust. A key feature of our approach is to use the partially...
Weakly electric fish use a navigational technique called electrolocation to investigate their surroundings for predator, prey and obstacles. Obstacles and other global stimuli are perceived as perturbations to the fish's self-generated electric field, which provide relevant navigational cues to the fish. In this work a control strategy based on electrolocation for performing obstacle avoidance in...
The need for the transfer of robotic technology from the research laboratories to civilian applications is now a major issue for the robotic community. In the field of marine robotics is particularly important to endow the robot with a safe and highly reliable Navigation Guidance and Control (NGC) system which enables the Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) to safely navigate even in presence of human...
Water quality monitoring is still mostly done by taking manual water samples and sensor measurements from boats. To enable extensive, efficient and repeatable environmental monitoring, there is a need for ‘ready to sample’ robot systems, which do not require individual vehicle control, or a lot of prior information. This paper describes an approach to decentralized adaptive formation control for environmental...
This paper presents dynamic inversion control with a region control method. Dynamic inversion control is chosen to deal with the strong coupling effect present in an underactuated aerial vehicle (quadrotor). Dynamic inversion is effective in both linear and nonlinear control whilst the region control method is a method that can reduce the energy consumption of the quadrotor. Numerical simulations...
CMRE has been evaluating the potential of autonomous networked ASW using underwater vehicles through a program of sonar signal processing, underwater communications, navigation and robotic behavior developments and at-sea decision support tested through an ambitious seagoing experimental program and demonstrated during NATO ASW exercises. In this paper the various scientific aspects of the program...
A robust maintenance of ecosystems demands for highly accurate and frequent monitoring of their status. The extension and remoteness of some environments renders their human-based monitoring extremely difficult. Riverine environments are a notorious example, as their sampling requires to bear into account both streams and riverbanks. The relevance of monitoring riverine environments is magnified by...
The MORPH project (FP 7, 2012–2016) advances a novel concept of an underwater robotic system composed of a number of spatially separated mobile robot-modules, carrying complementary resources. Instead of being physically coupled, the modules are connected via communication links that allow a limited flow of information among them. Without rigid links, the so called Morph Supra-Vehicle can reconfigure...
A multi-robot exploration algorithm is presented which is targeted at the exploration of 3D structures which predominantly extend along one orientation — the motivating example is underwater cliffs which are locally 3D but that are more globally seen to extend along a continuous vertical surface. The multi-robot exploration aims to maximise the sampling of the environment, causing much denser scans...
One fundamental problem in Simultaneous Localization and Mapping is place recognition, used to create loop closures, necessary to improve map quality. Ideally, the sensor data alone should be used to detect loop closures, referred to as appearance-based methods. Such methods usually employ feature descriptors, especially popular in underwater research are 2D visual features, and the bag-of-words approach...
A key to developing autonomous maritime systems for NATO is communication among data gathering platforms below and above the water. However, unlike the mature technologies that are used for terrestrial networks, underwater communications is still in an early stage. This paper provides an overview of CMRE's activities in the field of underwater communications where emphasis has been put in addressing...
The Widely scalable Mobile Underwater Sonar Technology (WiMUST) project is an H2020 Research and Innovation Action funded by the European Commission. The project aims at developing a system of cooperative Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) for geotechnical surveying and geophysical exploration. The project will address underwater communication, acoustic distributed sensor array, mission planning...
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