Autonomous docking of hovering type AUV to seafloor charging station based on acoustic and visual sensing
Autonomous docking of hovering type AUV to seafloor charging station based on acoustic and visual sensing
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DOI：
10.1109/ut.2017.7890282
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发表时间：
2017
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Yoshiki Sato;T. Maki;Kotohiro Masuda;T. Matsuda;T. Sakamaki
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文献类型：
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作者：
Yoshiki Sato;T. Maki;Kotohiro Masuda;T. Matsuda;T. Sakamaki
自主水下航行器（AUV）的优点在于它们不需要系绳电缆或人类控制。AUV最近被用于海底观测。然而，水下机器人有其电池的限制。AUV必须在电池耗尽之前回收。为了给AUV的电池充电，水下充电系统引起了很多关注。我们已经开发了用于悬停式AUV的海底充电站。在所提出的系统中，AUV根据附着在海底站上的声学和视觉地标自主地停靠到海底站。如果AUV远离海底站，则AUV通过声学定位装置接近海底站。当AUV足够接近以观察视觉地标时，AUV除了声学定位装置之外还通过视觉定位接近海底站的着陆点。视觉地标由4个LED标记组成。AUV通过前视摄像机观察LED标记，并计算自身相对于海底站的位置。到达着陆点后，AUV通过下降停靠到海底站。当对接完成后，海底站开始通过我们新开发的非接触式充电设备进行电力传输。通过一系列的水槽和海上实验验证了该系统的性能。本文介绍了悬停式AUV Tri-TON 2自主对接和电池充电实验的结果。
Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) have advantage that they do not require tether cables or human control. AUVs have recently been used for seafloor observation. However, AUVs have limitation of their batteries. AUVs must be recovered before they have run out of batteries. In order to charge batteries of AUVs, underwater charging systems have attracted a lot of attention. We have developed the seafloor charging station for hovering type AUVs. In the proposed system, AUVs dock to the seafloor station autonomously according to both acoustic and visual landmarks attached on the seafloor station. If AUVs are far away the seafloor station, AUVs approach the seafloor station by acoustic positioning device. When AUVs get close enough to observe the visual landmark, AUVs approach landing point of the seafloor station by visual localization in addition to the acoustic positioning device. The visual landmark consists of 4 LED markers. AUVs observe the LED markers by forward looking camera and calculate the position of themselves relative to the seafloor station. After reaching the landing point, AUVs dock to the seafloor station by descending. When the docking is completed, the seafloor station starts electric power transmission by our newly developed non-contact charging devices. The performance of the proposed system was verified through a series of tank and sea experiments. In this paper, the results of the autonomous docking and battery charging experiments using a hovering type AUV Tri-TON 2, are described.