ABSTRACT

While commercially available AUVs are routinely used in survey missions, a new set of applications exists which clearly demand intervention capabilities. The maintenance of: permanent observatories underwater; submerged oil wells; cabled sensor networks; pipes; and the deployment and recovery of benthic stations are but a few of them. These tasks are addressed nowadays using manned submersibles or work-class ROVs, equipped with teleoperated arms under human supervision. Although researchers have recently opened the door to future I-AUVs, a long path is still necessary to pave the way to underwater intervention applications performed in an autonomous way. This talk reviews the evolution timeline in autonomous underwater intervention systems. Milestone projects in the state of the art will be reviewed, highlighting their principal contributions to the field. Next, GIRONA 500 Intervention AUV will be presented and its software architecture discussed. Recent results in different scenarios will be reported: 1) Valve turning and connector plugging/unplugging while docked, 2) Free floating valve turning  and connection plugging/unplugging , 3) Free floating multipurpose multisensory based object recovery and 4) manipulation in the presence of obstacles. The talk with a discussion about the lessons learnt and the future directions for research.

SHORT BIO

Pere Ridao received the Ph.D. degree in computer engineering in 2001 from the University of Girona, Spain. Since 1997, he has participated in 19 research projects (10 European and 9 National), he is the author of more than 100 publications, and he has directed 5 PhDs theses (3 more currently under direction) and 13 MSc theses. His research activity focuses on designing and developing Autonomous Underwater Vehicles for 3D Mapping and Intervention. He is the director of the Computer Vision and Robotics Research Institute (VICOROB) and the head of the Underwater Robotics Research Center (CIRS) and an Associate professor with the Department of Computer Engineering of the University of Girona. Dr. Ridao is the chair of the IFAC's Technical Committee on Marine Systems. His research interest include intervention AUVs and Simultaneous Localization And Mapping methods for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.