Multiple robot operations for maritime search and rescue in euRathlon 2015 competition

Abstract

This paper presents results of the INESC TEC participation in the maritime environment (both at surface and underwater) integrated in the ICARUS team in the euRathlon 2015 robotics search and rescue competition. These relate to the marine robots from INESC TEC, surface (ROAZ USV) and underwater (MARES AUV) autonomous vehicles participation in multiple tasks such as situation assessment, underwater mapping, leak detection or victim localization. This participation was integrated in the ICARUS Team resulting of the EU funded project aimed to develop robotic tools for large scale disasters. The coordinated search and rescue missions were performed with an initial surface survey providing data for AUV mission planning and execution. A situation assessment bathymetry map, sidescan sonar imaging and location of structures, underwater leaks and victims were achieved, with the global ICARUS team (involving sea, air and land coordinated robots) participating in the final grand Challenge and achieving the second place. I. 978-1-4673-9724-7/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE

An overview of robotics and autonomous systems for harsh environments

“…The authors in [17] presented a maritime platform for search and rescue, which was submitted to the euRathlon 2015 competition. Here an unmanned surface vessel, ROAZ, was used cooperatively with a Mares autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to provide enhanced perception capabilities for both small and large scale rescue activities.…”

A lightweight docking station for a hovering AUV

“…The detection of visual targets lying on the sea floor was extensively tested during the euRathlon 2015 competition where the MARES AUV was part of a multi domain robotic team for search and rescue operations [19]. In these trials, MARES performed several sweeping maneuvers, similar to look_for_dock(), where it was able to detect and geolocate multiple visual targets distributed on the operation area.…”

Alternating landmark navigation of multiple AUVs for wide seafloor survey: Field experiment and performance verification

“…A research group from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) proposed a navigation method that uses multiple autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs), and have studied cooperation between ASVs and AUVs. The methods regarding supporting ASVs for navigation of AUVs have been proposed …”

“…The methods regarding supporting ASVs for navigation of AUVs have been proposed. [21][22][23] This paper is organized as follows. The method is explained in Section 2.…”