• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.1110-1115
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• 2004

Water covers two-thirds of the earth and has a great influence on the future existence of all human being. Thailand has extensive coastline and near shore water that contain vast biological and mineralogical resources. The rivers and canals can be found around the country especially in the Bangkok, which once called the Venice of the East. Autonomous underwater robot (AUR) will be soon a tool to help us better understand water resources and other environmental issues. This paper presents the design and basic control of a six-degree of freedom AUR "Chalawan", which was constructed to be used as a testbed for shallow. It is a simple low cost open-frame design, which can be modified easily to supports various research areas in the underwater environment. It was tested with a conventional proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller. After fine-tuning of the controller gains, the results showed the controller's good performances. In the future, the dynamic model of the robot will be analyzed and identified. The advanced control algorithm will be implemented based on the obtained model.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.679-687
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• 2019

This paper presents the autonomous swimming technology developed for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) operating in the underwater jacket structure environment. To prevent the position divergence of the inertial navigation system constructed for the primary navigation solution for the vehicle, we've developed kinds of marker-recognition based underwater localization methods using both of optical and acoustic cameras. However, these two methods all require the artificial markers to be located near to the cameras mounted on the vehicle. Therefore, in the case of the vehicle far away from the structure where the markers are usually mounted on, we may need alternative position-aiding solution to guarantee the navigation accuracy. For this purpose, we develop a sonar image processing based underwater localization method using a Forward Looking Sonar (FLS) mounted in front of the vehicle. The primary purpose of this FLS is to detect the obstacles in front of the vehicle. According to the detected obstacle(s), we apply an Occupancy Grid Map (OGM) based path planning algorithm to derive an obstacle collision-free reference path. Experimental studies are carried out in the water tank and also in the Pohang Yeongilman port sea environment to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed autonomous swimming technology.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.79-85
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• 2018

This study focuses on autonomous exploration based on map expansion for an underwater robot equipped with acoustic sonars. Map expansion is applicable to large-area mapping, but it may affect localization accuracy. Thus, as the key contribution of this paper, we propose a method for underwater autonomous exploration wherein the robot determines the trade-off between map expansion ratio and position accuracy, selects which of the two has higher priority, and then moves to a mission step. An occupancy grid map is synthesized by utilizing the measurements of an acoustic range sonar that determines the probability of occupancy. This information is then used to determine a path to the frontier, which becomes the new search point. During area searching and map building, the robot revisits artificial landmarks to improve its position accuracy as based on imaging sonar-based recognition and EKF-SLAM if the position accuracy is above the predetermined threshold. Additionally, real-time experiments were conducted by using an underwater robot, yShark, to validate the proposed method, and the analysis of the results is discussed herein.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.813-821
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• 2013

In this paper, we present the development of P-SURO II hybrid AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) which can be operated in both of AUV and ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) modes. In its AUV mode, the vehicle is supposed to carry out some of underwater missions which are difficult to be achieved in ROV mode due to the tether cable. To accomplish its missions such as inspection and maintenance of complex underwater structures in AUV mode, the vehicle is required to have high level of autonomy including environmental recognition, obstacle avoidance, autonomous navigation, and so on. In addition to its systematic development issues, some of algorithmic issues are also discussed in this paper. Various experimental studies are also presented to demonstrate these developed autonomy algorithms.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.312-318
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• 2012

Recently, although the need of marine robots being raised in extreme areas, the basis is very deficient. Fortunately, as the robot competition is vitalizing and the need of the robot education is increasing, it is desirable to establish the basis of the R&D and industrialization of marine robots and to train professionals through the development and diffusion of marine robot kits. However, in conventional case, there is no underwater-type autonomous marine robot kit for the marine robot competition, which has the abilities of the underwater locomotion and target detection and avoidance. To solve this problem, a marine robot kit which has the abilities of the underwater locomotion, the waterproof and the weight adjustment, is developed. To verify the performance of the developed kit, test and evaluation such as surge, pitch, yaw, obstacle avoidance is performed. The test and evaluation results show that the possibility of the real applications of the developed kit.

• International Journal of Fuzzy Logic and Intelligent Systems
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.124-130
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• 2005

Obstacle avoidance of underwater robots based on a modified virtual force field algorithm is proposed in this paper. The VFF(Virtual Force Field) algorithm, which is widely used in the field of mobile robots, is modified for application to the obstacle avoidance of underwater robots. This Modified Virtual Force Field(MVFF) algorithm using the fuzzy lgoc can be used in moving obstacles avoidance. A fuzzy algorithm is devised to handle various situations which can be faced during autonomous navigation of underwater robots. The proposed obstacle avoidance algorithm has ability to handle multiple moving obstacles. Results of simulation show that the proposed algorithm can be efficiently applied to obstacle avoidance of the underwater robots.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.249-254
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• 2015

Buoys are widely used in marine areas because they can mark positions and simultaneously acquire and exchange underwater, surface, and airborne information. Recently, the need for controlling and optimizing a buoy's position and attitude has been raised to achieve successful communication in a heterogeneous collaborative network composed of an underwater robot, a surface robot, and an airborne robot. A buoy in the form of a marine robot would be ideal to address this issue, as it can serve as a moving node of the communication network. Therefore, a buoy-based autonomous surface robot-kit with the abilities of sonar-based avoidance, dynamic position control, and static attitude control was developed and is discussed in this paper. The test and evaluation results of this kit show the possibility of real-world applications and the need for additional studies.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.189-200
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• 2015

This paper gives an overview on the some potential applications and key technologies of biomimetic underwater robot for naval operations. Unlike most manned underwater naval systems, biomimetic underwater robots can be especially useful in near-land or harbour areas due to their ability to operate in shallow water effectively. Biomimetic underwater robot provide advantages in reaching locations that would be difficult or too dangerous for a manned vehicle to reach, as well as providing a level of autonomy that can remove the requirement for dedicated human operator support. Using multiple or schools of underwater robots would provide increased flexibility for navigation, communication and surveillance ability. And it alleviate some of the restrictions associated with speed and endurance design constraints.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.237-240
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• 1997

The design of underwater inspection robot system is presented. This robot system is designed for wall inspection in the nuclear plant facility. This paper describes the major components of the robot and its structures. This robot system is consisted of three parts : mechanical electrical and sensing pail. The main problem of designing mechanical part is to select the mechanism of driving. In this system the propeller driving mechanism is selected which can be move the robot continuously. For reducing the size of robot, we designed the CPU and motor controller board. The sensor system is consisted of two parts. One is environment monitoring part and the other is robot localization system.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.141-149
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• 2016

In this technical note, the issues and challenges for the launch and recovery systems (LARS) and related techniques for the operation of an underwater robot from a manned platform are considered. Various types of LARS fitted to specific manned platforms, surface or sub-surface, are surveyed and categorized. The current UUV launch and recovery systems from surface ships and submarines utilize time consuming processes. As underwater robot technologies evolve and their roles are defined, safe and effective launch and recovery methods should be developed capable of reliable and efficient operations, particularly at a high sea state. To improve the existing underwater robot capabilities, LARS technology maturation is required in the near term, leading to the ability to incorporate autonomous LARS for an underwater robot on a manned platform. In the near term, particular emphasis should be placed on UUV LARS, which are surface ship based, with submarine based systems in the long term. Furthermore, for a dedicated LARS ship, independent of the existing host ship type, particular emphasis should be given to fully utilizing the capabilities of underwater robots.