MRI: Acquisition of Two REMUS Autonomous Underwater Vehicles for Multiple Cooperative Marine Vehicle Research

提案#：CNS09-23031 PI(S)：An，Edga Beaujean，Pierre-Philippe J.；西罗斯，尼古拉斯一.机构：佛罗里达大西洋大学标题：磁共振成像/Acq.：两个REMUS自主水下机器人多协作海洋机器人研究项目建议：该项目获得两个REMU 100自主水下机器人(AUV)，解决了多协作车辆系统(MCV)的研究挑战，涉及一支AUV舰队和自主安全船(ASV)。由于任何MCVD的成功运行往往依赖于车辆之间的有效通信，因此利用一组不同类型的AUV和ASV来研究动态任务规划问题(包括搜索、分类和映射能力)。这个具有挑战性的问题，考虑了水声通信、导航和传感的限制，不同于通常在水下文献中研究和报道的问题。这项工作与无人驾驶空中或地面车辆形成对比，在这些车辆中，通信和导航能力通常不被认为是显著的瓶颈。该项目利用了NSF之前的两项成果：-水下机器人网络模拟器和-位置感知源路由(LASR)协议，该协议是为受现实水下通信约束的多个通信AUV开发的，预计会随着环境条件和传感器特性的非线性和随机变化。因为考虑到控制性能往往是成本高昂的，当完全通过实验时，最优控制器设计的闭合形式的解是不被预期的。因此，考虑到任务和环境场景以及控制器目标的广泛范围，将采用建模、仿真和实验相结合的方法来研究该问题。一些模拟结果将通过使用该仪器进行有针对性的海上现场实验来验证。将探索地方成本定义，以此作为约束个人车辆-S操纵和合作的一种手段。注意最大限度地提高特派团的整体效率，同时尽量减少不确定性的影响。预期包括：-先进的基于事件的规划和控制算法，以提高通信和导航不确定性、吞吐量和带宽效率的稳健性，-先进的多协作飞行器建模软件，以支持任务性能分析，以及-多AUV和海底声学网络的科学基础。广泛影响：研究问题是论文和论文的理想主题。这一多学科领域将被整合到现有的课程课程中，为学生提供有价值的理论和模拟知识，以及实践经验。使用水下机器人作为主要领域的应用，现有的努力，支持教师和学生对数学和科学的兴趣，将继续特别考虑女性和代表性不足的群体。还计划举办研讨会、比赛和暑期班，让学生了解海上车辆的物流。这一理解成果可能会为美国海军使用自主水下机器人舰队更好地在国土安全任务中进行搜索和分类提供见解。

Proposal #: CNS 09-23031 PI(s): An, Edgar Beaujean, Pierre-Philippe J.; Xiros, Nikolaos I.Institution: Florida Atlantic University Title: MRI/Acq.: Two REMUS Autonomous Underwater Vehicles for Multiple Cooperative Marine Vehicle ResearchProject Proposed:This project, acquiring two REMUS 100 autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), addresses the research challenge of multiple cooperating vehicles systems (MCVS), which involves a fleet of AUVs and autonomous safety vehicles (ASVs). Since successful operation of any MCVD often rests upon efficient communication among the vehicles, the dynamic mission planning problem (including search and classify and mapping capabilities) is studied utilizing a fleet of heterogeneous AUVs and ASVs. This challenging problem, considering underwater acoustic communication, navigation, and sensing constraints, differs from those usually studied and reported in the underwater literature. The work is contrasted to unmanned aerial or ground vehicles in which communication and navigation capabilities are generally NOT considered significant bottlenecks. The project capitalizes on two previous NSF achievements:- An underwater vehicle network simulatorsand- A location aware source routing (LASR) protocol developed for multiple communicating AUVs subject to realistic underwater communication constraints.Nonlinear and stochastic variations with the environmental conditions and sensor characteristics are expected. Because a closed form solution for an optimal controller design is not anticipated, given that control performance tends to be cost-prohibitive, when completely via experimentation. Hence, given the wide range of mission and environmental scenarios and controller objectives, the problem will be studied combining modeling, simulation, and experimentation. Some of the simulated results will be validated by carrying out targeted at-sea field experiments using the instrumentation. Local cost definitions will be explored as a means to constrain individual vehicle?s maneuvering and cooperation. Attention is paid to maximizing the overall mission efficiency while minimizing the impact of uncertainty. Expectations include development of:- An advanced event-base planning and control algorithms to improve robustness of communication and navigation uncertainty, throughput, and bandwidth efficiency,- An advanced multiple cooperating vehicle modeling software to support mission performance analysis, and - A science base for multiple AUVs and undersea acoustic networks.Broader Impacts: The research problems constitute ideal topics for theses and dissertations. This multidisciplinary field will be integrated into the existing course curriculum, providing valuable theoretical and simulation knowledge to the students, as well as hands-on experiences. Using underwater robotics as a primary domain application, the existing effort, sustaining the teachers and students with interest in math and science, will be continued giving special consideration to female and underrepresented groups. Workshops, competitions, and summer classes are also planned to expose students the logistics of marine vehicles. The understanding gain is likely to provide insights to the U.S. Navy for missions using a fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles to better search and classify in homeland security missions.