Mapping Shallow Water Environments using a Semi-Autonomous Multi-Sensor Surface Vehicle

Abstract

We show a multi-sensor platform for mapping tasks of shallow water areas like rivers or harbors, both under and above the waterline simultaneously. The autonomy of the platform is realized just by integrating the sensors and the autonomy box which provides, i.a., the motion planning. The sensor data is synchronized purely in software by a newly developed timestamping filter. Maps obtained by the autonomously driven platform are shown as an example for the platform capabilities.