Self-reconfiguration of modular underwater robots using an energy heuristic

The deployment of a fleet of autonomous marine vehicles (AMVs) allows for the parallelisation of missions, intervehicle support for longer deployment times, adaptability and redundancy to in situ mission changes, and effective use of the right vehicle for the right purpose. End users and operators of AMVs face challenges in planning complex missions due to the limitations of their vehicles, dynamic, operationally constrictive, and unstructured environments, and in minimising risks to equipment, the mission, and personnel. Automated mission planning for AMV fleets can be a tool to reduce the complexity of programming vehicle tasking, and to perform validity assessments for end user-specified goals, allowing the operator to focus on risk assessment. We present a critical review of the current advances in automated planning for AMV fleets, investigating the limitations of available state-ofthe-art tools and providing a road map of the goals and challenges based on analysis of field reports and end user initiatives.

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“…Christensen et al (), Furno, Blanke, Galeazzi, and Christensen (), Furno, Blanke, Galeazzi, and Christensen ()…”

Section: Amv Fleetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of mission planning for autonomous marine vehicle fleets

Thompson

Guihen

2018

Journal of Field Robotics

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“…The REMORA project represents collaborative underwater robots designed for inspection and repair of underwater foundations and rigs [50]. The modular design of these robots result in a collaboration, wherein other REMORA robots are able to merge into a larger device through a connection mechanism to overcome environmental challenges that would overwhelm single platforms [51]. This unique function results in increased resilience via shared system awareness and fault recovery.…”

Section: ) Underwater Roboticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Symbiotic System of Systems Design for Safe and Resilient Autonomous Robotics in Offshore Wind Farms

Mitchell¹,

Blanche

Zaki

et al. 2021

IEEE Access

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To reduce Operation and Maintenance (O&M) expenditure on offshore wind farms, wherein 80% of the cost relates to deploying personnel, the offshore wind sector looks to advances in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (RAI) for solutions. Barriers to residential Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) autonomy as a service, include operational challenges in run-time safety compliance, reliability and resilience, due to the complexities of dealing with known and unknown risk in dynamic environments. In this paper we incorporate a Symbiotic System Of Systems Approach (SSOSA) that uses a Symbiotic Digital Architecture (SDA) to provide a cyber physical orchestration of enabling technologies. Implementing a SSOSA enables Cooperation, Collaboration and Corroboration (C 3 ), as to address run-time verification of safety, reliability and resilience during autonomous missions. Our SDA provides a means to synchronize distributed digital models of the robot, environment and infrastructure. Through the coordinated bidirectional communication network of the SDA, the remote human operator has improved visibility and understanding of the mission profile. We evaluate our SSOSA in an asset inspection mission within a confined operating environment. Demonstrating the ability of our SSOSA to overcome safety, reliability and resilience challenges. The SDA supports lifecycle learning and co-evolution with knowledge sharing across the interconnected systems. Our results evaluate both sudden and gradual faults, as well as unknown events, that may jeopardize an autonomous mission. Using distributed and coordinated decision making, SSOSA enhances the analysis of the mission status, which includes diagnostics of critical sub-systems within the resident robot. This evaluation demonstrates that the SSOSA provides enhanced run-time operational resilience and safety compliance to BVLOS autonomous missions. SSOSA has the potential to be a highly transferable methodology to other mission scenarios and technologies, providing a pathway to implementing scalable autonomy as a service.

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“…The REMORA project [39] examines the use of aquatic modular robots for the inspection and maintenance of off-shore structures, such as oil platforms. The robots can move underwater in 3-D. Furno et al [28] present a hardware prototype of the system and perform experiments in which three robots reconfigure from an "I" shape to an "L" shape.…”

Section: A Self-propelled Modular Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%