Dynamic Autonomous Surface Vehicle Control and Applications in Environmental Monitoring
This addresses path deviation issues in ASVs for applications like environmental monitoring, but appears incremental as it builds on existing methods for similar problems in aerial or underwater operations.
The paper tackles the problem of Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs) being diverted from intended paths by wind and currents during environmental monitoring tasks, and presents a framework for modeling these forces and tuning control to ensure correct trajectory following.
This paper addresses the problem of robotic operations in the presence of adversarial forces. We presents a complete framework for survey operations: waypoint generation,modelling of forces and tuning the control. In many applications of environmental monitoring, search and exploration, and bathymetric mapping, the vehicle has to traverse in straight lines parallel to each other, ensuring there are no gaps and no redundant coverage. During operations with an Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV) however, the presence of wind and/or currents produces external forces acting on the vehicle which quite often divert it from its intended path. Similar issues have been encountered during aerial or underwater operations. By measuring these phenomena, wind and current, and modelling their impact on the vessel, actions can be taken to alleviate their effect and ensure the correct trajectory is followed.