Real-Time Position and Attitude Estimation for Homing and Docking of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Based on Bionic Polarized Optical Guidance

As an important tool for marine exploration, the autonomous underwater vehicle(AUV) must home in and dock at a docking station(DS) to be recharged, repaired, or to exchange information at set intervals. However, the complex and hostile underwater environment makes this process challenging. This study proposes a real-time method based on polarized optical guidance for determining the position and attitude of the AUV relative to its DS. Four polarized artificial underwater landmarks are positioned at the DS, which are recognized by the AUV vision system. Compared with light intensity, the polarization of a light beam is known to be better maintained at greater propagation distances, especially in underwater environments. The proposed method, which is inspired by the ability of marine animals to communicate, calculates the pose parameters in less than 10 ms without any other navigational information. The simulation results reveal that the angle errors are small and the position errors are no more than 0.116 m within 100 m in the coastal ocean. The results of underwater experiments further demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method, which extends the operating distance of the AUV beyond what is currently possible while maintaining the precision of traditional optical guidance.

Design and analysis of an underwater inductive coupling power transfer system for autonomous underwater vehicle docking applications

We develop a new kind of underwater inductive coupling power transfer(ICPT)system to evaluate wireless power transfer in autonomous underwater vehicle(AUV)docking applications.Parameters that determine the performance of the system are systematically analyzed through mathematical methods.A circuit simulation model and a finite element analysis(FEA)simulation model are developed to study the power losses of the system,including copper loss in coils,semiconductor loss in circuits,and eddy current loss in transmission media.The characteristics of the power losses can provide guidelines to improve the efficiency of ICPT systems.Calculation results and simulation results are validated by relevant experiments of the prototype system.The output power of the prototype system is up to 45 W and the efficiency is up to 0.84.The preliminary results indicate that the efficiency will increase as the transmission power is raised by increasing the input voltage.When the output power reaches 500 W,the efficiency is expected to exceed 0.94.The efficiency can be further improved by choosing proper semiconductors and coils.The analysis methods prove effective in predicting the performance of similar ICPT systems and should be useful in designing new systems.

Research of Underwater Self-Reconfigurable System

This article describes a novel underwater robot, which is called underwater self-reconfigurable system(USS). USS is studied and developed by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. It is formed by a quantity of the same modules and works in group. Based on that, USS can change its form while working in the complicated underwater structures according to diffierent tasks. New multi-jaw underwater docking system, piston style regulator and clamshell-like sampling module are designed for USS, these developments address the problems of underwater docking, floating condition adjusting and sampling. Besides, the gaits like wriggle, creeping, swimming and fourlegged moving have been successfully implemented in tank and lake test, which verifies the validity of the concept.