Autonomous Four‐Dimensional Mapping and Tracking of a Coastal Upwelling Front by an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Zhang, Yanwu; Bellingham, James; Ryan, John P.; Kieft, Brian; Stanway, M. Jordan

doi:10.1002/rob.21617

Cited by 40 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…AUVs are used on several different types of missions ranging from long endurance oceanographic missions [24] to intervention missions [15], and surveillance [17,20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effective Turning Motion Control of Internally Actuated Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Ziaeefard

Page

Pinar

et al. 2017

J Intell Robot Syst

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This paper presents a novel roll mechanism and an efficient control strategy for internally actuated autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The developed control algorithms are tested on Michigan Tech's custom research glider, ROUGHIE (Research Oriented Underwater Glider for Hands-on Investigative Engineering), in a controlled environment. The ROUGHIE's design parameters and operational constraints were driven by its requirement to be man portable, expandable, and maneuverable in shallow water. As an underwater glider, the ROUGHIE is underactuated with direct control of only depth, pitch, and roll. A switching control method is implemented on the ROUGHIE to improve its maneuverability, enabling smooth transitions between different motion patterns. This approach uses multiple feedforwardfeedback controllers. Different aspects of the roll mechanism and the effectiveness of the controller on turning motion are discussed based on experimental results. The results illustrate that the ROUGHIE is capable of achieving tight turns with a radius of 2.4 meters in less than 3 meters of water, or one order of magnitude improvement on existing internally actuated platforms. The developed roll mechanism is not specific to underwater gliders and is applicable to all AUVs, especially at lower speeds and in shallower water when external rudder is less effective in maneuvering the vehicle.

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“…AUVs are used on several different types of missions ranging from long endurance oceanographic missions [24] to intervention missions [15], and surveillance [17,20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effective Turning Motion Control of Internally Actuated Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Ziaeefard

Page

Pinar

et al. 2017

J Intell Robot Syst

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show abstract

“…As a consequence, in order to better understand the interaction between physics and phytoplankton ecology in the MIZ, new technologies need to be applied. Modern instruments such as gliders and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) represent suitable platforms to meet the requirement of conducting high resolution synoptic measurements with minimal disturbance (Lee et al, 2012;Zhang et al, 2013Zhang et al, , 2015. Recently, for example, gliders were used to study the MIZ in the Beaufort Sea as part of the Marginal Ice Zone Program of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) (Lee et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physical and ecological processes at a moving ice edge in the Fram Strait as observed with an AUV

Wulff

Bauerfeind

Appen

2016

Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers

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a b s t r a c tSmall-scale investigations of physical and biogeochemical parameters have been carried out with an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) at a moving ice edge in the Fram Strait. The AUV was equipped with various sensors to study the complex interactions between physical and ecological processes along the ice edge and the associated meltwater front. The AUV covered two cross-front sections of 9 km and recorded high resolution vertical profiles of the physical and biogeochemical properties between 0 and 50 m water depth at a horizontal station spacing of 800-1000 m.In both physical and biogeochemical terms, the measurements revealed a complex structure of the water column. The distribution of phytoplankton biomass (chlorophyll a) and nutrients was highly inhomogeneous. Chlorophyll a concentrations of 5 mg l À 1 were detected at the frontal interface in a small corridor just 2-4 km wide and only 5 m deep. Nutrients at the surface were depleted, yet, compared to previous studies of this region, were still present in the euphotic zone. Below the euphotic zone, nitrate concentrations of 8 mmol l À 1 and oxygen saturation values of 100% resulted in a "dome-like" patternsuggestive of vertical transport processes. Based on these measurements, three different zones featuring individual biogeochemical characteristics were identified in the cross-front sections. Atmospheric forcing and the presence of the melt water front are assumed to be mainly responsible for the complexity of the water column. Localized vertical transport events seem to have occurred before our investigations. Furthermore, wind driven frontogenesis likely contributed to vertical water movements. All processes had an effect on the biological processes along the observed meltwater front.

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“…Areas of significant productivity in the coastal ocean are highly correlated with locations of significant bathymetric relief, e.g., algal blooms (Horner et al, 1997;Anderson et al, 2002;FultonBennett, 2005;Kudela et al, 2005;Sekula-Wood et al, 2009) and ocean fronts (Mancho et al, 2008;Ferrari, 2011;Zhang et al, 2013). In these areas, every path traversed by an AUV has a depth signature that is highly variable and becomes increasingly unique the longer the trajectory becomes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enabling Persistent Autonomy for Underwater Gliders with Ocean Model Predictions and Terrain-Based Navigation

2016

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Effective study of ocean processes requires sampling over the duration of long (weeks to months) oscillation patterns. Such sampling requires persistent, autonomous underwater vehicles that have a similarly, long deployment duration. The spatiotemporal dynamics of the ocean environment, coupled with limited communication capabilities, make navigation and localization difficult, especially in coastal regions where the majority of interesting phenomena occur. In this paper, we consider the combination of two methods for reducing navigation and localization error: a predictive approach based on ocean model predictions and a prior information approach derived from terrain-based navigation. The motivation for this work is not only for real-time state estimation but also for accurately reconstructing the actual path that the vehicle traversed to contextualize the gathered data, with respect to the science question at hand. We present an application for the practical use of priors and predictions for large-scale ocean sampling. This combined approach builds upon previous works by the authors and accurately localizes the traversed path of an underwater glider over long-duration, ocean deployments. The proposed method takes advantage of the reliable, short-term predictions of an ocean model, and the utility of priors used in terrain-based navigation over areas of significant bathymetric relief to bound uncertainty error in dead-reckoning navigation. This method improves upon our previously published works by (1) demonstrating the utility of our terrain-based navigation method with multiple field trials and (2) presenting a hybrid algorithm that combines both approaches to bound navigational error and uncertainty for long-term deployments of underwater vehicles. We demonstrate the approach by examining data from actual field trials with autonomous underwater gliders and demonstrate an ability to estimate geographical location of an underwater glider to <100 m over paths of length >2 km. Utilizing the combined algorithm, we are able to prescribe an uncertainty bound for navigation and instruct the glider to surface if that bound is exceeded during a given mission.

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Autonomous Four‐Dimensional Mapping and Tracking of a Coastal Upwelling Front by an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Cited by 40 publications

References 27 publications

Effective Turning Motion Control of Internally Actuated Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Effective Turning Motion Control of Internally Actuated Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Physical and ecological processes at a moving ice edge in the Fram Strait as observed with an AUV

Enabling Persistent Autonomy for Underwater Gliders with Ocean Model Predictions and Terrain-Based Navigation

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