Background
Constructor Robotics, back then still under the name Jacobs University for our institution, coordinated the EU-project “Cooperative Cognitive Control for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (Co3-AUVs)”, which was carried out with seven partners from February 2009 to January 2011.
Overview
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) represent one of the most challenging frontiers for robotics research. AUVs work in an unstructured environment and face unique perception, decision, control and communications difficulties. Currently, the state of the art is dominated by single AUVs limited to open-sea preplanned trajectories with offline postprocessing of the data gathered during the mission. The use of multiple AUVs as propagated in this project is still in a very early research phase. Some of the research issues addressed in this project are even completely uncharted territory, especially the development of functionalities to seamlessly monitor critical underwater infrastructures and to detect anomalous situations (e.g., missions related to harbour safety and security) and the study of advanced AUVs capable of interacting with humans to perform such functions as companion/support platforms during scientific and commercial dives.
The aim of the Co3-AUVs project is to develop, implement and test advanced cognitive systems for coordination and cooperative control of multiple AUVs. Several aspects will be investigated including 3D perception and mapping, cooperative situation awareness, deliberation and navigation as well as behavioral control strictly linked with the underwater communication challenges. As a result, the team of AUVs will cooperate in challenging scenarios in the execution of missions where all data is processed online. In doing so, the team will be robust with respect to failures and environmental changes. These key features will be tested in a harbor scenario where additional difficulties with respect to open sea applications arise and in a human diver assistance scenario that also illustrates human robot interaction issues.
The research activities in the project are structured into the mail work-packages Cooperative World Modeling, Cooperative Mission Execution, and Cooperative Skills. The project also includes work on a Simulator as well as joined experiments in the form of Demonstrators.
Publications
[1] H. Bülow, A. Birk, and V. Unnithan, “Online Generation of an Underwater Photo Map with Improved Fourier Mellin based Registration,” in IEEE OCEANS, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1109/OCEANSE.2009.5278193 [Preprint PDF]
[2] A. Birk, “Cooperative Cognitive Control for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles,” in IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), WS Recent Developments in Marine Robotics, Kobe, Japan, 2009.
[3] A. Birk, G. Antonelli, A. Pascoal, and A. Caffaz, “Cooperative Cognitive Control for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles,” in 8th International Conference on Computer Applications and Information Technology in the Maritime Industries (COMPIT), Budapest, 2009. [Preprint PDF]
[4] H. Bülow, M. Pfingsthorn, and A. Birk, “Using Robust Spectral Registration for Scan Matching of Sonar Range Data,” in 7th Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles (IAV), IFAC, Lecce, 2010. https://doi.org/10.3182/20100906-3-IT-2019.00105 [Preprint PDF]
[5] G. Indiveri, G. Antonelli, A. Caiti, G. Casalino, A. Birk, A. Pascoal, and A. Caffaz, “The CO3AUVs (Cooperative Cognitive Control for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles) Project: overview and current progresses,” in 7th Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles (IAV), IFAC, Lecce, 2010, pp. 235-239. https://doi.org/10.3182/20100906-3-IT-2019.00042 [Preprint PDF]
[6] K. Pathak, A. Birk, and N. Vaskevicius, “Plane-Based Registration of Sonar Data for Underwater 3D Mapping,” in IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Taipeh, Taiwan, 2010, pp. 4880 – 4885. https://doi.org/10.1109/IROS.2010.5650953 [Preprint PDF]
[7] M. Pfingsthorn, S. Schwertfeger, H. Bülow, and A. Birk, “Maximum Likelihood Mapping with Spectral Image Registration,” in IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2010. https://doi.org/10.1109/ROBOT.2010.5509366 [Preprint PDF]
[8] S. Schwertfeger, H. Bülow, and A. Birk, “On the effects of Sampling Resolution in Improved Fourier Mellin based Registration for Underwater Mapping,” in 7th Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles (IAV), IFAC, Lecce, 2010. https://doi.org/10.3182/20100906-3-IT-2019.00106 [Preprint PDF]
[9] A. Sehgal, D. Cernea, and A. Birk, “Modeling Underwater Acoustic Communications for Multi-Robot Missions in a Robotics Simulator,” in IEEE Oceans, Sydney, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1109/OCEANSSYD.2010.5603824 [Preprint PDF]
[10] A. Sehgal, D. Cernea, and A. Birk, “Simulating Underwater Acoustic Communications in a High Fidelity Robotics Simulator,” IFAC Proceedings Volumes, vol. 43, pp. 587-592, 2010/01/01/ 2010. https://doi.org/10.3182/20100906-3-IT-2019.00101 [Preprint PDF]
[11] H. Bülow and A. Birk, “Spectral Registration of Noisy Sonar Data for Underwater 3D Mapping,” Autonomous Robots, vol. 30, pp. 307-331, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-011-9221-8 [Preprint PDF]
[12] A. Birk, G. Antonelli, A. Caiti, G. Casalino, G. Indiveri, A. Pascoal, and A. Caffaz, “The Co3-AUVs (COoperative COgnitive COntrol for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles) Project: overview and current progresses,” in IEEE Oceans, Santander, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1109/Oceans-Spain.2011.6003552 [Preprint PDF]
[13] H. Buelow and A. Birk, “Diver Detection by Motion-Segmentation and Shape-Analysis from a Moving Vehicle,” in IEEE Oceans, Kona, 2011. https://doi.org/10.23919/OCEANS.2011.6107115 [Preprint PDF]
[14] H. Buelow and A. Birk, “Gesture-Recognition as basis for a Human Robot Interface (HRI) on a AUV,” in IEEE Oceans, Kona, 2011. https://doi.org/10.23919/OCEANS.2011.6107118 [Preprint PDF]
[15] M. Pfingsthorn, A. Birk, and N. Vaskevicius, “Semantic Annotation of Ground and Vegetation Types in 3D Maps for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Operation,” in IEEE Oceans, Kona, 2011. https://doi.org/10.23919/OCEANS.2011.6107122 [Preprint PDF]
[16] M. Pfingsthorn, A. Birk, N. Vaskevicius, and K. Pathak, “Cooperative 3D Mapping under Underwater Communication Constraints,” in IEEE Oceans, Kona, 2011. https://doi.org/10.23919/OCEANS.2011.6107123 [Preprint PDF]
[17] J. Poppinga, A. Birk, K. Pathak, and N. Vaskevicius, “Fast 6-DOF Path Planning for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) based on 3D Plane Mapping,” in IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR), Kyoto, 2011, pp. 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1109/SSRR.2011.6106771 [Preprint PDF]
[18] R. Rathnam and A. Birk, “Distributed Communicative Exploration under Underwater Communication Constraints,” in IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR), Kyoto, 2011, pp. 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1109/SSRR.2011.6106767 [Preprint PDF]
[19] A. Birk, A. Pascoal, G. Antonelli, A. Caiti, G. Casalino, and A. Caffaz, “Cooperative Cognitive Control for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (CO3AUVs): overview and progresses in the 3rd project year,” in IFAC Workshop on Navigation, Guidance and Control of Underwater Vehicles (NGCUV), Porto, Portugal, 2012. https://doi.org/10.3182/20120410-3-PT-4028.00060 [Preprint PDF]
[20] M. Pfingsthorn, A. Birk, and H. Bülow, “Uncertainty Estimation for a 6-DoF Spectral Registration method as basis for Sonar-based Underwater 3D SLAM,” in International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Saint Paul, Minnesota, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224731 [Preprint PDF]