The paper discusses the use of dual stave forward-looking sonar to build a threedimensional underwater model for navigation in restricted waterways. The sonar normally provides separate horizontal and vertical images but when the information is synthesized into a single three-dimensional model it permits, in certain circumstances, the AUV to plan and carry out a trajectory where no path is othe...

This paper describes a feasibility study that is included with the research, development and testing of a micro communications sonobuoy deployable by Maritime Fixed wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (M-UAV) and rotor wing Quad Copters which are both currently being developed by the University of Adelaide. The micro communications sonobuoy is developed to act as a seamless communication relay betwee...

As autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) enter operational service an assessment of their reliability is timely. Using the Autosub AUV as an example, several design issues affecting reliability are discussed, followed by an analysis of recorded faults. Perhaps contrary to expectations, failures rarely involved the autonomous nature of the vehicle. Rather, faults were typical of those that occur...

Abstract: Improvements in high resolution small forward looking sonar (FLS) and computer processing have made it possible to develop an obstacle avoidance system (OAS) for small diameter Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV). An AUV with such a system can maneuver around unanticipated obstacles that may be proud of the ocean floor. This ability can prevent serious damage to the vehicle or the en...

Exploration for robotic mapping is typically handled using greedy entropy reduction. Here we show how to apply information lookahead planning to a challenging instance of this problem in which an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) maps hydrothermal vents. Given a simulation of vent behaviour we derive an observation function to turn the planning for mapping problem into a POMDP. We test a vari...

Maintaining accurate localization of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is difficult because electronic signals such as GPS are highly attenuated by water making established land-based localization systems, such as GPS, useless underwater. Instead we propose an alternative approach which integrates position information of other vehicles to reduce the error and uncertainty of the on-board po...

Mine Countermeasures (MCM) present a challenging motion planning problem when taking into account ocean currents, complex bathymetry, and vehicle dynamics. In an effort to improve autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) motion planning for MCM, this work presents a Physical Traveling Salesmen Problem (PTSP) approach as a way to quickly and robustly generate motions for the reacquisition and identif...

To improve the reliability of the motion control system for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), sensor fault tolerant control based on replace control was talked about. This paper analyzed the decoupling controller and the sensor system firstly, and proposed a fault tolerant control strategy based on the ideas of replacing the fault sensor outputs by the sliding-mode observer outputs (also ...

This paper is about using range-only data to navigate an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). We assume the vehicle is equipped with conventional long base line (LBL) transceiver which measures acoustic time of flights (TOFs) between vehicle and small submerged transponders. Using only range data and no prior information other than approximate water column depth, we solve for both transponder l...

Current methods for Multi-AUV cooperation suffer in low communication environments. State of the art methods employ auctioneering or planning to determine a single AUV’s task. These systems require communication for efficient task selection. Most strategies assume a teammate is inoperable if a communication timeout is reached which reduces overall team efficiency. Including teammate prediction ...