Advanced perception, navigation and planning for autonomous in-water ship hull inspection
Author(s)
Hover, Franz S.; Eustice, Ryan M.; Kim, Ayoung; Englot, Brendan J.; Johannsson, Hordur; Kaess, Michael; Leonard, John Joseph; ... Show more Show less
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Inspection of ship hulls and marine structures using autonomous underwater vehicles has emerged as a unique and challenging application of robotics. The problem poses rich questions in physical design and operation, perception and navigation, and planning, driven by difficulties arising from the acoustic environment, poor water quality and the highly complex structures to be inspected. In this paper, we develop and apply algorithms for the central navigation and planning problems on ship hulls. These divide into two classes, suitable for the open, forward parts of a typical monohull, and for the complex areas around the shafting, propellers and rudders. On the open hull, we have integrated acoustic and visual mapping processes to achieve closed-loop control relative to features such as weld-lines and biofouling. In the complex area, we implemented new large-scale planning routines so as to achieve full imaging coverage of all the structures, at a high resolution. We demonstrate our approaches in recent operations on naval ships.
Date issued
2013-04-24Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical EngineeringJournal
International Journal of Robotics Research
Publisher
Sage Publications
Citation
Hover, F. S. et al. “Advanced Perception, Navigation and Planning for Autonomous In-water Ship Hull Inspection.” The International Journal of Robotics Research 31.12 (2012): 1445–1464.
Version: Author's final manuscript
ISSN
0278-3649
1741-3176