Toward autonomous exploration in confined underwater environments

Date
2015-08Author
Mallios, Angelos
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Ridao, Pere
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Ribas, David
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Carreras, Marc
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Camilli, Richard
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Metadata
Show full item recordCitable URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1912/8951As published
https://doi.org/10.1002/rob.21640Abstract
In this field note we detail the operations and discuss the results of an experiment conducted
in the unstructured environment of an underwater cave complex, using an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). For this experiment the AUV was equipped with two acoustic
sonar to simultaneously map the caves’ horizontal and vertical surfaces. Although the
caves’ spatial complexity required AUV guidance by a diver, this field deployment successfully demonstrates a scan matching algorithm in a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) framework that significantly reduces and bounds the localization error for fully
autonomous navigation. These methods are generalizable for AUV exploration in confined
underwater environments where surfacing or pre-deployment of localization equipment are
not feasible and may provide a useful step toward AUV utilization as a response tool in
confined underwater disaster areas.
Description
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of John Wiley & Sons for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Field Robotics 33 (2016): 994-1012, doi:10.1002/rob.21640.