Enabling autonomous capabilities in underwater robotics

— Underwater operations present unique challenges and opportunities for robotic applications. These can be attributed in part to limited sensing capabilities, and to locomotion behaviours requiring control schemes adapted to specific tasks or changes in the environment. From enhancing teleoperation procedures, to providing high-level instruction, all the way to fully autonomous operations, enabling autonomous capabilities is fundamental for the successful deployment of underwater robots. This paper presents an overview of the approaches used during underwater sea trials in the coral reefs of Barbados, for two amphibious mobile robots and a set of underwater sensor nodes. We present control mechanisms used for maintaining a preset trajectory during enhanced teleoperations and discuss their experimental results. This is followed by a discussion on amphibious data gathering experiments conducted on the beach. We then present a tetherless underwater communication approach based on pure ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: IROS
• Authors: Junaed Sattar, Gregory Dudek, Olivia Chiu, Ioannis M. Rekleitis, Philippe Giguère, Alec Mills, Nicolas Plamondon, Chris Prahacs, Yogesh Girdhar, Meyer Nahon, John-Paul Lobos
• Keywords: IROS 2008, Robotics, Underwater, Underwater Operations, Underwater Sensor Nodes