Intervention AUV

About: Intervention AUV is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 980 publications have been published within this topic receiving 14130 citations.

The Present State of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Applications and Technologies

Abstract: The usefulness of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) has been proven in recent years and will continue to be. The authors review current AUV state of the art. A feasible present-day AUV mission discussion reviews present AUV capabilities. Also addressed are the state of key AUV sensor technologies and design features, with areas most critical to continued future AUV development progress identified.

A vision system for an underwater cable tracker

Abstract: Nowadays, the surveillance and inspection of underwater installations, such as power and telecommunication cables and pipelines, is carried out by operators that, being on the surface, drive a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) with cameras mounted over it. This is a tedious and high time-consuming task, easily prone to errors mainly because of loss of attention or fatigue of the human operator. Besides, the complexity of the task is increased by the lack of quality of typical seabed images, which are mainly characterised by blurring, non-uniform illumination, lack of contrast and instability in the vehicle motion. In this study, the development of a vision system guiding an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) able to detect and track automatically an underwater power cable laid on the seabed is the main concern. The vision system that is proposed tracks the cable with an average success rate above 90%. The system has been tested using sequences coming from a video tape obtained in several tracking sessions of various real cables with a ROV driven from the surface. These cables were installed several years ago, so that the images do not present highly contrasted cables over a salady seabed; on the contrary, these cables are partially covered in algae or sand, and are surrounded by other algae and rocks, thus making the sequences highly realistic.

Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Navigation

Abstract: The development of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) has finally reached the point that their use on commercial projects is now being seriously considered. Much of the research and development efforts to date have been funded primarily by military organizations to meet defense objectives. In this paper the authors examine the navigation problems and their potential solutions that will permit the reliable use of AUVs on commercial survey and inspection operations. These techniques include the global positioning system, inertial navigation systems, Doppler speed logs, bathymetry- aided navigation, acoustic measurements from chase ships, acoustic measurements from transponders (bread- crumb technique), and multiple cooperative AUVs. The current level of development for each of the approaches will be discussed and its future potential assessed. Finally, the authors’ development efforts and current level of implementation relating to the XP-21 AUV will be presented.