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Marine Robots and Dexterous Manipulation for Enabling Autonomous Underwater Multipurpose Intervention Missions

Project description


Cognitive Systems and Robotics
Developing new methodology to provide multipurpose dexterous manipulation capabilities for intervention operations in unknown, unstructured and underwater environments
There is an ever increasing demand for technology which provides autonomous assistance in underwater scenarios, ranging from maritime rescue to marine bapplications, and including specific tasks in offshore industries. TRIDENT proposes a new methodology for multipurpose underwater intervention tasks with diverse potential applications such as underwater archaeology, coastal and ocean observatories, oceanography and offshore industries, going beyond present-day methods typically based on manned and/or purpose-built systems. The TRIDENT project brings together research skills specific to the marine environments in navigation and mapping for underwater robotics, multi-sensory perception and a range of control techniques relating to intelligent control architectures, vehicle-manipulator systems and dexterous manipulation.

TRIDENT proposes a new methodology for multipurpose underwater intervention tasks with diverse potential applications like underwater archaeology, oceanography and offshore industries, going beyond present-day methods typically based on manned and / or purpose built systems.A team of two cooperative heterogeneous robots with complementary skills, an Autonomous Surface Craft (ASC) and an Intervention Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (I-AUV) endowed with a dexterous manipulator, will be used to perform underwater manipulation tasks.The proposed methodology is based on two steps.During the first step, the I-AUV is deployed from the ASC to perform a cooperative path following survey, where it gathers optical/acoustic data from the seafloor whilst the ASC provides geo-referenced navigation data as well as communication with the end user. During this phase of the mission the I-AUV will be doing accurate path following and terrain tracking, to maximize bottom coverage and data quality. The motion of the ASC will be coordinated with that of the I-AUV to achieve precise USBL (Ultra Short Base Line) positioning and reliable acoustic communications. After the survey, the I-AUV docks with the ASC and sends the data back to a ground station where a map is set up and a target object is identified by the end user.At the second step, the ASC navigates towards a waypoint near the intervention area where the I-AUV is launched to search for the object. When the object (i.e. the target of the intervention) has been found, the I-AUV switches to free floating navigation mode. The manipulation of the object takes place through a dexterous hand attached to a redundant robot arm and assisted with proper perception. Particular emphasis will be put on the research of the vehicles intelligent control architecture to provide the embedded knowledge representation framework and the high-level reasoning agents required to enable a high degree of autonomy and on-board decision making of the platform. The new methodology will allow the user to specify an intervention task, among a set of predefined ones, to be undertaken with regards to a particular target object selected by the end user by means of the map previously built. Hence the intervention task is seen as a semi-automatic process where the target is manually selected but then it is automatically recognized and manipulated by the robot in a complete autonomous way. The TRIDENT project brings together research skills specific to marine environments in navigation and mapping for underwater robotics, multi-sensory perception and a range of control techniques relating to intelligent control architectures, vehicle-manipulator systems and dexterous manipulation.

Fields of science

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Call for proposal

FP7-ICT-2009-4
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Funding Scheme

CP - Collaborative project (generic)

Coordinator Contact

Prof. Pedro J. SANZ Prof.

Coordinator

UNIVERSITAT JAUME I DE CASTELLON
EU contribution
€ 456 988,00
Address
AVENIDA VICENT SOS BAYNAT S/N
12006 Castellon De La Plana
Spain

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Region
Este Comunitat Valenciana Castellón/Castelló
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Administrative Contact
Ismael Rodrigo-Martínez (Mr.)
Links
Total cost
No data

Participants (7)

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Last update: 16 July 2019

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Permalink: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/248497

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