Underwater autonomous vehicles are frequently used for deep-water ocean applications such as surveying and cable-laying, where accurate control of vehicle depth and attitude is needed. The water level in the on-board ballast tanks are typically manually set for neutral buoyancy before each mission, while the vehicle is on the surface. The resulting weight of the water level is not normally adjusted while the unmanned vehicle is in operation to control vehicle depth and orientation. As a result, vehicle trajectory and orientation is exclusively controlled using the vehicle’s control surfaces during a mission. The challenges with controlling the depth and trim of an underwater vehicle include nonlinear hydrodynamic forces as well as relatively slow response times and inherent time delays (latencies) associated with water tank level changes and valve adjustments. To meet these challenges, this thesis proposes two unique variable ballast system control approaches. The proposed control approaches may be suitable for large autonomous underwater vehicles with both small (volume = 0.027 m3, each) and large (volume = 0.216 m3, each) ballast tanks. The first proposed variable ballast system controller uses the current parameters of the ballast tanks to determine the appropriate action to be implemented. This controller was designed change the weight of the AUV to help control vehicle parameters such as depth and vertical (inertial) velocity. The second proposed variable ballast controller attempts to shift the center of gravity x_G along the body-fixed x-(longitudinal) axis by changing the weight in the ballast tanks. By shifting the center of gravity, the controller attempts to reduce depth and pitch angle error while regaining control authority to the bowplane and sternplane deflection fins. The ballasting system consists of two water tanks positioned aft and forward of amidships. The ballast tanks are then automatically filled or emptied of ocean water as desired. Setpoint depth control and x_G shifting numerical simulations have been carried out on a two-dimensional underwater vehicle simulator to test and compare the performance of the proposed ballast and deflection control systems. The simulation results show that, for the assumptions and conditions tested, the proposed controllers are versatile and capable of achieving a setpoint depth and pitch angle with minimal error by effectively utilizing the ballast tanks and deflection fins. As a result, the work presented in this thesis helps increase the autonomy of large AUVs on long duration missions.

The use of Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) in exploring and building infrastructure in the ocean is expanding. ROVs are performing tasks underwater that would be difficult or impossible to do with human divers. These vehicles are being used in increasingly complicated and demanding environments that require improvements in the methods for controlling these vehicles. Currently, research into semi-autonomous control is being conducted to aide ROV pilots in compensating for environmental disturbances and unknown dynamics. To effectively implement semi-autonomous control, precise thrust forces must be elicited from the thrusters. This work discusses a low-level thruster controller that can be used as part of a semi- autonomous guidance, navigation and control system for a ROV. A thruster dynamics model describing the thrust force of a propeller-type underwater thruster was derived and implemented for the thruster on the Saab Seaeye Falcon ROV. The thruster dynamics model described is a quadratic equation that uses the propeller velocity to determine thrust force. This model includes a mechanism for compensation against the external motion of the thruster, such as occurs when the ROV moves through the water. Several experiments were performed to fully characterize the quadratic thruster dynamics model and test its ability to accurately predict thrust force based on a known ambient water velocity and propeller angular velocity. The drag force was calculated and removed from the force measurements to get the thrust force used in the model. The model coefficients were determined and then the resulting model was tested against experimental data to determine the efficacy of the model in the lab environment and compare it to a widely used linear thruster dynamics model. The results showed the quadratic model improved upon the linear model, and the quadratic model was valid over a larger range of ambient water velocities. The quadratic model was then inverted to provide a thruster control algorithm that determines the propeller angular velocity necessary to produce a desired thrust force. This algorithm was used to design a low-level thruster controller. This controller was designed to be used on an existing vehicle where thrust force feedback is not available and difficult or expensive to add. This allows it to be used in a wider range of applications than controllers that rely on such feedback to operate. The controller was implemented using a PID control loop to drive the angular velocity of the propeller to the desired rate. An iso-parametric mapping, which transforms the linear PID output to the non-linear thruster input, was added to provide a faster response time for the controller over the entire range of the propeller velocity. The performance of this low-level thruster controller was demonstrated in the test environment. The low-level thruster controller followed a desired thrust force under a range of ambient water velocities. The thruster characterization and low-level thruster controller was designed to be used on an existing ROV. The motivation behind this work is to build a controller that may be implemented for use by a high-level vehicle controller. The low-level thruster controller presented here does not depend on sensors or equipment that is largely unavailable on vehicles without costly retrofits, and the experimental characterization does not require intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the thruster. This makes it easy to implement and generalize to a variety of thrusters. The results of this work show a low-level thruster controller than can be used in a control schema for existing ROVs. / Graduate / 0547 / matt@amosbuchanan.net

For decades, Remotely Operated underwater Vehicles (ROVs) have been helping mankind explore the depths of the ocean, and build and maintain infrastructure on the seafloor. Since the first ROV was developed in 1953, the number of uses for these vehicles has exploded. They are now an essential part of maintaining the world's energy resources, collecting scientific data about our oceans, and performing underwater search and recovery. This research will discuss guidance, navigation, and control algorithms for use as a low-level position controller for ROVs, which will enable semi-autonomous behaviour for the vehicle. Semi-autonomous behaviour is when the pilot issues high-level position commands and the low-level controller handles station keeping and maneuvering between the commanded positions. In this configuration, the low level controller compensates for the environmental disturbances and unknown dynamics (such as current and tether dynamics), allowing the pilot to focus on other aspects of the task (such as manipulator control). In this work, the design,implementation,and testing of a complete guidance, navigation, and control system is presented. A Saab Sea-Eye Falcon ROV is augmented with a suite of navigation instruments. The augmented vehicle is characterized and a dynamic model is developed. This model is used in an extended Kalman filter, which will be shown to produce a position estimate for the vehicle with an error of less than ±6 cm. The navigation system is combined with a guidance system and adaptive controller to enable semi-autonomous behaviour. With this suite of software, the ROV can operate semi-autonomously. The resulting ROV system is a research platform, from which the underwater community can continue research into algorithms for optimal control, remote operations, and other performance enhancing technologies. / Graduate / 0771 / 0547 / allycin2@gmail.com

Thesis (M.S.)--Joint Program in Oceanography/ Applied Ocean Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 2005. / Bibliography: p.124-125.

Submitted by Diego Cesar (rasecg3@gmail.com) on 2017-06-26T19:47:01Z No. of bitstreams: 1 main_compressed.pdf: 16459769 bytes, checksum: b7838aeb4e94120d45daddb2c1b3c80e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Flávia Sousa (flaviabs@ufba.br) on 2017-06-28T14:27:38Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 main_compressed.pdf: 16459769 bytes, checksum: b7838aeb4e94120d45daddb2c1b3c80e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-28T14:27:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 main_compressed.pdf: 16459769 bytes, checksum: b7838aeb4e94120d45daddb2c1b3c80e (MD5) / Underwater navigation is affected by the lack of GPS due to the attenuation of the electromagnetic signals. Thereby, underwater robots rely on dead reckoning as their main navigation systems. However, localization via dead-reckoning raises uncertainties over time. Consequently, visual and acoustic sensors have been used to increase accuracy in robotic systems navigation, specially when they move in relation to a target object. This level of precision is required, for instance, for object manipulation, inspection, monitoring and docking. This work aims to develop and assess a hybrid visual controller for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) using artificial fiducial markers as reference. Artificial fiducial markers are planar targets, designed to be easily detected by computer vision systems and provide means to estimate the robot’s pose in respect to the marker. They usually have high detection rate and low false positive rate, which are desirable for visual servoing tasks. On this master thesis was evaluated, from among the most popular and open-source marker systems, one that presents the best performance in underwater environments in terms of detection rate, false positives rate, maximum distance and angle for successful detection. Afterwards, the best marker was used for visual servoing purposes in an underwater robot. The firsts experiments were performed on the Gazebo robot simulation environment and, after that, on a real prototype, the FlatFish. Tests on a saltwater tank were performed in order to assess the controller using static and adaptive gains. Finally, sea trials were performed, using the controller that best behaved on the controlled environment in order to assess its performance on a real environment. The tests have shown that the visual controller was able of station-keeping in front of an artificial fiducial marker. Additionally, it was also seen that the adaptive gain brings improvements, mainly because it smooths the robot’s motion on the beginning of the task. / Navegação submarina é afetada pela falta de GPS, devido à atenuação de ondas eletromagnéticas. Por causa disso, os robôs submarinos baseiam-se em sistemas de navegação via odometria e sensores inerciais. Contudo, a localização via esse tipo de abordagem possui uma incerteza associada que cresce com o passar do tempo. Por isso sensores visuais e acústicos são utilizados para aumentar a precisão da navegação de veículos submarinos. Nesse contexto, a utilização de um controlador visual aumenta a precisão dos sistemas robóticos quando se locomovem em relação a um objeto alvo. Esse tipo de precisão é requerida para manipulação de objetos, inspeção, monitoramento e docagem submarina. Esse trabalho tem como objetivo projetar e avaliar um controlador visual híbrido para um veículo submarino autônomo (AUV) utilizando como referência marcos visuais artificiais. Os marcos artificiais são alvos planares projetados para serem facilmente detectados por sistemas de visão computacional, sendo capazes de fornecer meios para estimação da posição do robô em relação ao marco. As suas características de alta taxa de detecção e baixa taxa de falsos positivo são desejáveis para tarefas de controle servo visual. Este trabalho analisou, portanto, dentre os marcos mais populares e de código aberto, aquele que apresenta o melhor desempenho em ambientes submarinos, em termos de taxa de detecção, número de falsos positivos, máxima distância e ângulo para detecção. Posteriormente, o marco que apresentou melhor performance foi utilizado para aplicação de controle visual em um robô submarino. Os primeiros ensaios foram realizados na plataforma de simulação robótica Gazebo e, posteriormente, em um protótipo de AUV real, o FlatFish. Testes em um tanque de água salgada foram realizados visando avaliar a solução proposta utilizando um ganho estático e um ganho adaptativo para o controlador visual. Finalmente, testes no mar foram realizados utilizando o controlador que apresentou os melhores resultados no ambiente controlado, a fim de verificar seu desempenho em um ambiente real. Os testes mostraram que o controlador visual foi capaz de manter o veículo em frente aos marcos visuais artificiais e que o ganho adaptativo trouxe vantagens, principalmente por suavizar a movimentação do robô no início da missão.

The focus of this work is to design and construct a version of the secondary propulsion units used on US Navy submarines for the Virginia Tech 690 autonomous underwater vehicle. These units were used to demonstrate a control system developed in a separate study which allowed the vehicle to autonomously perform advance maneuvers such as course-keeping, mooring and obstacle avoidance. The study of the miniaturized thrusters prompted an in-depth look into two thruster designs. The first was a retractable rimdriven propeller design which was found to be too power inefficient for implementation. The final design was an azimuthing ducted propeller capable of vectoring thrust 360 degrees. Two body sections containing an implementation of the ducted propeller design were constructed and mounted to the 690 vehicle. Tests were successfully conducted in a pool. / Master of Science

Miniature Autonomous Underwater Vehicles are a major area of research and development today. Because of their size and agility, they are capable of exploring and operating in smaller bodies of water in addition to areas of the ocean that would be out of reach for a larger vehicle. Being autonomous requires that the system must be capable of performing without the need for human supervision, so use of external sensors such as sonar are needed to ensure the safety of the vehicle during missions. However, since all of the onboard instrumentation and external equipment must also be miniature in size, the implementation of a small sonar system is desirable. This thesis contains a brief introduction to sound and sonar, leading into a description of the design and development of a small, inexpensive sonar altimeter. Piezoelectric material is used for transduction in the sonar system while a PIC microcontroller processes the return signals from the water. This altimeter was made to be implemented on a miniature autonomous underwater vehicle developed by the Autonomous Systems and Controls Laboratory at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. In addition to being capable of reporting ocean depths, sonar systems can be used to aid in the navigation of underwater vehicles. A constant altitude controller based on sonar data has been designed, tested, and implemented on the autonomous underwater vehicle. Possibilities for an obstacle avoidance system involving sonar are also discussed in this thesis. / Master of Science

Conventional streamlined autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) with a single thruster and stern planes are typically trimmed to be somewhat buoyant or heavy in water. To maintain depth, they must generate a constant hydrodynamic force which requires that they swim at a constant pitch angle. Although tail fins are the typical mechanism for generating this control moment, they become ineffective at low speeds. To enable an existing AUV to travel at lower speeds, one may easily incorporate a modular moving mass actuator. In some cases, it may also be advantageous to include a fixed wing. The equations of motion and equilibrium conditions to regulate depth are derived, and the effectiveness and low-speed efficiency of a fixed wing is evaluated. The effect of the vertical offset of the moving mass is analyzed to establish the relation between the control angle and the moving mass linear position. A description of the design of a one degree of freedom moving mass actuator module and preliminary experiments using the Virginia Tech Miniature AUV is provided. Data is presented for a series of fixed MMA position experiments as well as a dynamic position test. The results illustrate the effectiveness of a moving mass actuator at generating low-speed control moments. With the collected data, parameter identification is performed to get an estimate of the hydrodynamic parameters. / Master of Science

Buoyancy driven underwater gliders, which locomote by modulating their buoyancy and their attitude with moving mass actuators and inflatable bladders, are proving their worth as efficient long-distance, long-duration ocean sampling platforms. Gliders have the capability to travel thousands of kilometers without a need to stop or recharge. There is a need for the development of methods for hydrodynamic modeling. This thesis aims to determine the hydrodynamic parameters for the governing equations of motion for three autonomous underwater vehicles. This approach is two fold, using data obtained from computational flight tests and using a semi-empirical approach. The three vehicles which this thesis focuses on are two gliders (Slocum and XRay/Liberdade), and a third vehicle, the Virginia Tech Miniature autonomous underwater vehicle. / Master of Science

There are benefits to the use of internal actuators for rotational maneuvers of small-scale underwater vehicles. Internal actuators are protected from the outside environment by the external pressure hull and will not disturb the surrounding environment during inspection tasks. Additionally, internal actuators do not rely on the relative fluid motion to exert control moments, therefore they are useful at low speed and in hover. This paper describes the design, fabrication and testing of one such autonomously controlled, internally actuated underwater vehicle. The Internally Actuated, Modular Bodied, Untethered Submersible (IAMBUS) can be used to validate non-linear control strategies using internal actuators. Vehicle attitude control is provided by three orthogonally mounted reaction wheels. The housing is a spherical glass pressure vessel, which contains all of the components, such as actuators, ballast system, power supply, on-board computer and inertial sensor. Since the housing is spherically symmetric, the hydrodynamics of IAMBUS are uncoupled (e.g. a roll maneuver does not impact pitch or yaw). This hull shape enables IAMBUS to be used as a spacecraft attitude dynamics and control simulator with full rotational freedom. / Master of Science