UNDERWATER ROBOT SWARMS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS

UNDERWATER ROBOT SWARMS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS

Research on autonomous vehicles has been a key area of concern especially in the last two-three decades. Underwater vehicles took their share in such studies. In addition to single remotely-controlled and autonomous underwater vehicles, ongoing research deals with construction of coordinated missions to be performed by groups of such vehicles. In this study, which can be considered as a condensed review of the underwater robot swarms, we try to summarize the challenges and practical issues in this area. In addition, we try to illustrate the advantages of a swarm formation with a basic case study

___

  • L.L. Whitcomb, “Underwater robotics: Out of the research laboratory and into the field”, in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Autom., 2000, pp. 85–90.
  • R. Wernli, “AUV Commercialization - Who’s leading the pack?”, presented in MTS/lEEE Oceans’01 Conference, 2001.
  • A. Martins, J.M. Almeida, and E. Silva, “Coordinated Maneuver for Gradient Search Using Multiple AUVs”, in IEEE Oceans Conference Records, 2003, vol. 1, pp. 347– 352.
  • D.B. Edwards, T.A. Bean, D.L. Odell, and M.J. Anderson, “A Leader-FoIlower Algorithm for Multiple AUV Formations”, in Proc. IEEE/OES Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, 2004, pp. 40–46.
  • G. Beni and J. Wang, “Swarm Intelligence in Cellular Robotic Systems”, presented in NATO Advanced Workshop on Robots and Biological Systems, 1989.
  • R. Brooks, P. Maes, M. Mataric, and G. Moore, “Lunar Base Construction Robots”, in Proc. IEEE Int. Workshop Intelligent Robots and Systems, 1990, pp. 389–392.
  • M. Mataric, “Minimizing Complexity in Controlling a Mobile Robot Population”, in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Autom., 1992, vol. 1, pp. 830–835.
  • D.O. Popa, A.C. Sanderson, R.J. Komerska, S.S. Mupparapu, D.R. Blidberg, and S.G. Chappel, “Adaptive Sampling Algorithms for Multiple Autonomous Underwater Vehicles”, in Proc. IEEE/OES Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, 2004, pp. 108–118.
  • L. Bayındır and E. Şahin, “A Review of Studies in Swarm Robotics”, Turk. J. Elec. Engin., 2007, vol.15, no.2, pp. 115–147.
  • E. Silva, A. Martins, I. Almeida, and F. Pereira, “Specification of multiple AUV strategies for search of freshwater oceanic sources”, in Proc. MTS/IEEE Oceans, 2003, vol. 1, pp. 346.
  • J. Bellingham, M. Tillerson, M. Alighanbari, and J. How, “Cooperative path planning for multiple UAVs in dynamic and uncertain environments,” in Proc. 4th IEEE Conf. Dec. Cont., 2002, pp. 2816–2822 .
  • C.C. Sotzing, J. Evans, and D.M. Lane, “A Multi-Agent Architecture to Increase Coordination Efficiency in Multi-AUV Operations”, in Proc. OCEANS 2007 – Europe, 2007, pp. 1–6 .
  • J.G. Proakis, J.A. Rice, E.M. Sozer, M. Stojanovic, “Shallow water acoustic networks”, in Encyclopedia of Telecommunications (ed. J.G. Proakis), John Wiley and Sons, 2003.
  • L. Stutters, H. Liu, C. Tiltman, and D.J. Brown, “Navigation Technologies for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles”, IEEE Trans. Sys., Man, Cyber. – Part C: Appl. Rev., 2008, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 581–589.
  • J.J. Leonard, A.A. Bennett, C.M. Smith, H.J.S. Feder, “Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Navigation”, in Proc. IEEE ICRA Workshop Navigat. Outdoor Aut.. Vehicles, 1998.
  • E. Bovio, D. Cecchi, F. Baralli, “Autonomous underwater vehicles for scientific and naval operations”, Annual Reviews in Control, 2006, vol. 30, pp. 117–130.
  • R. E. Kalman, “A new approach to linear filtering and prediction problems”, Trans. ASMA J. Basic Eng. Series D, 1960, vol. 82, pp. 35–45.
  • S. J. Julier and J. Uhlmann, “A new extension of the Kalman filter to nonlinear systems,” presented at Int. Symp. Aerosp./Defense Sensing, Simul. Controls, 1997.
  • E. Wan and R. van der Merwe, “The unscented Kalman filter for nonlinear estimation,” in Proc. IEEE Adapt. Syst. Signal Process., Commun., Control Symp. (AS-SPCC), 2000, pp. 153–158.
  • B. Ristic, S. Arulampalam, and N. Gordon, Beyond the Kalman Filter: Particle Filters for Tracking Applications. Norwood, MA: Artech House, 2004.
  • F. Gustafsson, F. Gunnarsson, N. Bergman, U. Forssell, J. Jansson, R. Karlsson, and P. Nordlund, “Particle filters for positioning, navigation and tracking,” IEEE Trans. Signal Process., 2002, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 425–437.
  • M. W. M. G. Dissanayake, P. Newman, S. Clark, H. F. Durrany-Whyte, and M. Csorba, “A solution to the simultaneous localization and map building (SLAM) problem,” IEEE Trans. Robot. Autom., 2001, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 229–241.
  • I.T. Ruiz, S. Reed, Y. Petillot, J. Bell, and D.M. Lane, “Concurrent mapping and localisation using side-scan sonar for autonomous navigation,” IEEE J. Ocean. Eng., 2004, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 442–456.
  • S. Shahabudeen, M. Chitre, and M. Motani, A multi-channel MAC protocol for AUV networks”, in Proc. OCEANS 2007 – Europe, 2007, pp. 1–6 .
  • I.F. Akyildiz, D. Pompili, T. Melodia, "Underwater acoustic sensor networks: research challenges", Ad Hoc Networks, 2005, vol. 3, pp. 257–279.
  • E.M. Sozer, M. Stojanovic, and J.G. Proakis, “Underwater Acoustic Networks”, IEEE J. Ocean. Eng., 2000, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 72–83.
  • R. Somaraju and F. Schill, “A Communication Module and TDMA Scheduling for a Swarm of Small Submarines”, Turk. J. Elec. Engin., 2007, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 283–306.
  • J.B. Sousa and F.L. Pereira, “A General Control Architecture For Multiple Vehicles”, in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Autom., 1996, pp. 692–697.
  • J.B. Sousa, F.L. Pereira, and E.P. da Silva, “A General Control Architecture For Multiple AUVs”, in Proc. Symp. on Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Technology (AUV '96), 1996, pp. 223–230.
  • J.B. Sousa and F.L. Pereira, “A Generalized Vehicle Based Control Architecture for Multiple AUVs”, in Proc. MTS/IEEE Challenges of Our Changing Global Environment (OCEANS '95), 1995, pp. 1643–1650.
  • P.K.C. Wang, F.Y. Hadaegh, and K. Lau, “Synchronized formation rotation and attitude control of multiple free-flying spacecraft”, Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, 1999, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 28–35.
  • D.J. Stilwell, B.E. Bishop, “Platoons of underwater vehicles”, IEEE Control Systems Magazine, 2000, vol. 20, no. 6, pp. 45-52.
  • J. Ghommam, O. Calvo, and A. Rozenfeld, “Coordinated path following for multiple underactuated AUVs”, in Proc. MTS/IEEE Kobe Techno-Ocean (OCEANS 2008), 2008, pp. 1–7.
  • A. Jadbabaie, J. Lin, and A.S. Morse, “Coordination of groups of mobile autonomous agents using nearest neighbor rules”, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2003, vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 988–1001.
  • L. Moreau, “Stability of multi-agent systems with time-dependent communication links”, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2005, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 169–182.
  • J.R. Lawton, R.W. Beard, and B. Young, “A decentralized approach to formation maneuvers”, IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 2003, vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 933–941.
  • S. Sarkka, “Unscented Rauch-Tung-Striebel Smoother”, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2008, vol. 53, no. 3, pp. 845–849.
  • A. Gelb, Applied Optimal Estimation, The MIT Press, 1974.
  • D.C. Fraser and J.E. Potter, “The Optimum Linear Smoother as a Combination of Two Optimum Linear Filters”, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 1969, vol. AC-14, pp. 387–390.
  • J. Hartikainen and S. Särkkä, “Optimal filtering with Kalman filters and smoothers – a Manual http://www.lce.hut.fi/research/mm/ekfukf/, Last Accessed: 04.06.2009. Matlab toolbox EKF/UKF”, Available Online: