In this paper, we investigate the controllability of an underwater vehicle immersed in an infinite volume of an inviscid fluid whose flow is assumed to be irrotational. Taking as control input the flow of the fluid through a part of the boundary of the rigid body, we obtain a finite-dimensional system similar to Kirchhoff laws in which the control input appears through both linear terms (with t...

This paper reports a stable online adaptive identification technique for the identification of finite-dimensional dynamical models of dynamically positioned underwater robotic vehicles. Proofs for the identifier’s global stability, and for the input-tostate stability of this class of plants are reported. A direct comparison of the adaptive identification method to a conventional, offline, least...

When underwater vehicles perform navigation close to the ocean floor, computer vision techniques can be applied to obtain quite accurate motion estimates. The most crucial step in the vision-based estimation of the vehicle motion consists on detecting matchings between image pairs. Here we propose the extensive use of texture analysis as a tool to ameliorate the correspondence problem in underw...

The main problem in bringing autonomy to any vehicle lies in the design of a suitable guidance law. For a truly autonomous operation, the vehicle needs to have a reliable Navigation, Guidance and Control (NGC) system of which the guidance system is the key element, which generates suitable trajectories to be followed. In this survey paper, various guidance laws found in the literature and their...

This article describes the design, modeling and identification of the main hydrodynamic parameters of an underwater glider vehicle is presented. The equations describing the dynamics of the vehicle is obtained from the Euler-Lagrange method. The main hydrodynamic parameters were obtained considering the geometry of the vehicle and its operating characteristics. Finally, simulation open loop sys...

This paper presents a multi-sensor adaptable navigation system for an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV). A new multiple Kalman filter strategy is proposed, in which sensors can easily be added and removed from the navigation system without users having to modify the navigation algorithm. Sensors are assigned confidence levels, modifiable by the operator and the algorithm. The results o...

Performing subsea intervention tasks is a challenge due to the complexities of the underwater domain. We propose to use a learning by demonstraition algorithm to intuitively teach an intervention autonomous underwater vehicle (IAUV) how to perform a given task. Taking as an input few operator demonstrations, the algorithm generalizes the task into a model and simultaneously controls the vehicle...

{ Diierent sensing techniques have been used for a long time in the development of remote operated vehicles (ROVs) and, in the recent years, autonomous underwater vehicles, (AUVs). Sonar has been the most popular choice in what concerns depth information or obstacle detection in most of the existing systems. Vision, however is a powerful sensing modality and could be used in many tasks where ac...

Nowadays, the surveillance and inspection of underwater installations, such as power and telecommunication cables and pipelines, is carried out by trained operators who, from the surface, control a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) with cameras mounted over it. This is a tedious, time-consuming and expensive task, prone to errors mainly because of loss of attention or fatigue of the operator and ...

The control design for unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) is challenging due to the uncertainties in the complex dynamic modeling of the vehicle as well as its unstructured operational environment. To cope with these difficulties, a practical robust control is therefore desirable. The paper deals with the application of coefficient diagram method (CDM) for a robust control design of an autonom...