Cooperative AUV Network Plan Fall 2012 Kevin DeMarco August 27, 2012

Current State
Currently, there are three Yellowns that are mostly built. The two second generation Yellowns have attachments for external sensing via forward-looking sonar or video camera. Also, the second generation Yellowns are each equipped with a mast that provides a GPS receiver, 900 MHz radio transceiver, and a WiFi antenna. Internally, the rst and second generation Yellowns are essentially the same, except for the external GPS, radio, WiFi, sonar, and video camera. The Yellowns are all equipped with a Linux single board computer, XMOS low-level controller, IMU, digital compass, acoustic communications transducer, and battery management system. One of the new Yellowns has been tested in the Georgia Tech CRC pool by teleoperating the AUV over the WiFi link via MOOS. The other second generation Yellown still needs to have its O-rings installed and it has to be placed in a tank for leak testing.

Hardware and Software Improvements

The hardware modications that need to be made are fairly modest, but somewhat time consuming. The front bulkhead connectors on the second generation Yellowns need to have their leads shortened to simplify the process of opening and closing the internals of the Yellowns. Also, the GPS, 900 MHz RF, and WiFi cables need to be shortened to make room in the front portion of the Yellown. The nal hardware modications will involved xing a few of the RS-232 communication links between the Linux computer to the 900 MHz radio and WHOI MicroModem acoustic communications transducer. The software modications will present a greater challenge since they will involve writing a lowlevel controller for the Yellown that will enable the Yellown to set its heading, depth, and velocity. These are low-level functions that will enable higher-level functions, such as move to way-point. A communications handler will also have to be written to handle the transmission and reception of messages from various transceivers: WiFi, 900 MHz radio, and WHOI MicroModem. Finally, the sonar imagery from the BlueView forward looking sonar will have to be processed via computer vision techniques in order to nd and track blobs, corners, and other features of interest on board the embedded Linux computer.

Simulations
In order to facilitate the software and controller development on the actual Yellowns, simulations will be used to help tune controllers before actually testing in the water. First, a high-delity six degrees-of-freedom (DOF) model will be developed in Octave (a Matlab clone). This model will then be converted to C++ in order to develop a ROS node that simulates the dynamics of the Yellown for use in the OpenRobots MORSE 3D simulator. In the MORSE simulator, the network protocols for the formation controller, communications, and cooperative operations will be implemented.

Testing
Testing will take place at either the Georgia Tech CRC diving well or at Lake Whit (a Lake that is owned by GTRIs Whit Smith). Initial testing will focus on tuning the low-level controllers for the Yellowns (heading, depth, GPS waypoint) and communicating with the Yellowns over the WHOI

Acoustic MicroModem. Another phase of testing, which can occur in parallel to tuning the controller is building a database of forward looking sonar images of various objects ranging from divers to AUVs. Eventually, the goal will be for the Yellown to avoid obstacles with its forward looking sonar while moving towards a goal.

Proposed Demonstrations
If all of the previous goals are accomplished, a number of demonstrations should be developed. First, a leader-follower AUV network will be demonstrated where the leader is following GPS way-points at the surface while the AUV follower tracks the leader with its forward looking sonar. The second demonstration will entail a cooperative search where the three Yellowns are searching for a cable or other man-made object on the waters oor and communicating with each other when the item is found. Finally, a third more complicated demonstration will entail heterogeneous collaboration between the Yellowns, a surface vehicle (Clearpaths Kingsher) and UAVs. The UAVs and AUVs will communicate via the surface vehicle, which will act as a relay between the AUV acoustic communication network and the UAV RF communication network.

Theory
Most of what has been described is in the realm of fairly practical engineering and robotics. I will bring the development in the academic domain by relating it to Hugh Durrant-Whytes Decentralized Data Fusion (DDF) research at the University of Sydney. Having also studied Dr. Egerstedts GraphTheoretic Methods for Multi-Agent Control, I have noticed a number of parallels in both of their works in terms of how the decentralized nodes determine which information to transmit to neighbors and how to incorporate new information into the currently estimated state. I have a strong background in the Graph Theory and Linear Algebra associated with this research, but I have much to learn in terms of the probabilistic lters used in Hugh Durrant-Whytes work.

Conferences & Papers

Here is a list of conferences that I could possibly generate literature for submission and the associated deadline for the paper: International Journal of Computers and Applications - Oct. 10th. 26th IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition - November 4th 2012 IEEE/ION Position, Location and Navigation Symposium - Abstract due Nov. 1st. WORV 2013 : IEEE Workshop on Robot Vision - Sept. 24th. Bookmark and Share Notes: http://iaesjournal.com/online/index.php/IJRA