In the last years, a challenging field of autonomous robotics is represented by cooperative mobile manipulation carried out in different environments (aerial, terrestrial and underwater environment). As regards cooperative manipulation of Intervention-Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (I-AUVs), this application is characterized by a more complex environment of work, compared to the terrestrial or ...

Ocean processes are dynamic, complex, and occur on multiple spatial and temporal scales. To obtain a synoptic view of such processes, ocean scientists collect data over long time periods. Historically, measurements were continually provided by fixed sensors, e.g., moorings, or gathered from ships. Recently, an increase in the utilization of autonomous underwater vehicles has enabled a more dyna...

A critical problem in planning sampling paths for autonomous underwater vehicles is correctly balancing two issues. First, obtaining an accurate scalar field estimation and second, efficiently utilizing the stored energy capacity of the sampling vehicle. Adaptive sampling approaches can only provide solutions when real-time and a priori environmental data is available. In this paper we present ...

Underwater Sensor Networks (UWSN) are gaining increasing importance. The main constituents of UWSN are Static Acoustic sensor nodes and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles. The sensor nodes located in a particular depth are to pass the data to the sinks. As acoustic transmission range is limited, the information has to be routed via many hops. We are proposing a distance based routing scheme for suc...

The future of tactical ocean environment will be increasingly complicated. In addition to traditional communication links there will be a proliferation of unmanned vehicles in space, in the air, on the surface, and underwater. To effectively utilize these systems improvements in underwater communication systems are needed. Since radio waves do not propagate in sea water and acoustic communicati...

This paper reports recent advances and open problems in navigation, control, and survey methodologies for underwater robotic vehicles. First, the technical challenges of underwater navigation are discussed. Second, an acoustic navigation system combining bottom-lock doppler sonar and time-ofight long-baseline (LBL) navigation techniques, recently reported by the Authors, is reviewed. The perfor...