Universal Autonomous Control and Management System for Multipurpose Unmanned Surface Vessel

Abstract

The paper presents design, structure and architecture of the Universal Autonomous Control and Management System (UACAMS) for multipurpose unmanned surface vessel. The system was designed, installed and implemented on the multipurpose platform - unmanned surface vessel named HydroDron. The platform is designed to execute hydrographic survey missions with multi-variant configuration of the survey system (payload?) including multi-beam echo sounder, sonar, LiDAR, automotive radar, photographic and spectral camera systems. The UACAMS designed to provide flexibility that enables to operate on the different kind of surface platform and different type of functional payload. The full system configuration provides all four level of autonomy starting from remotely controlled to full autonomous mission. Each level can be implemented and run depending on user specific requirements. The paper explains the differences between autonomous and automatic mission and shows how the autonomy is implemented into the presented system. The full hardware structural design as well as the software architecture are described. In order to confirm initial assumptions the applied system was tested during four- week sea trials and tuned for a selected vessel to confirm assumptions. In the project, also the original shore control station was designed, produced and tested for the vessel, including specific user controls and radio communication system. Conclusions sum up all crucial points of the design and system implementation process.

Integrity Concept for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships’ Position Sensors

“…There has been significant progress within the last decades in the development of Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASV). The ASVs have been produced in a range from small "pocket" platforms that can be carried in the trunk of the car to larger units of a nearly seagoing range [6]. These vessels have been mostly used for hydrographic measurements in shallow waters or an area/environment monitoring close to shores or offshore structures.…”

State-of-the-Art Research on Motion Control of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships

“…Although the PID algorithm is simple and easy to use, the control effect on complex nonlinear systems is still poor, and the PID controller with fixed parameters can not meet the precise control requirements of the time-varying system. Later, relevant scholars have improved the parameters optimization of PID, and designed such as Universal Autonomous Control and Management System (UACAMS) [118] to adjust the parameters on-line. Especially for fractional-order PID controllers, due to the introduction of λ and µ, the controller needs to adjust five parameters.…”

Framework for Fast Experimental Testing of Autonomous Navigation Algorithms

“…This work shares several aspects with our approach, but it is focused exclusively on aerial multi-agent systems. A whole system architecture for autonomous surface vehicles (ASV) can be found in [34], while in [35] a generic framework is presented as an alternative to the navigation stack, but it focuses in planning and control of wheeled robots with different kinematic constraints rather than covering the whole navigation problem.…”