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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Perimeter Patrol On Autonomous Surface Vehicles Using Marine Radar, Elena Oleynikova, Nicole Lee, Andrew Barry, Joseph Holler, David Barrett Jul 2012

Perimeter Patrol On Autonomous Surface Vehicles Using Marine Radar, Elena Oleynikova, Nicole Lee, Andrew Barry, Joseph Holler, David Barrett

David Barrett

Perimeter patrol enhances the utility of autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) by enabling many security and scientific missions, including harbor protection, water sampling, and geological survey. We present a novel approach to perimeter patrol that uses only two sensors: commercial off-the-shelf available marine radar and the heading information from a GPS. Our algorithm performs computer vision morphological operations on the radarimage to find a suitable path around shore and choose an appropriate next waypoint. Our method has proved robust to a variety of field conditions, allowing us to demonstrate the autonomous navigation of a 3.5 km perimeter lake.


The Optimal Control Of A Flexible Hull Robotic Undersea Vehicle Propelled By An Oscillating Foil, David Barrett, Mark Grosenbaugh, Michael Triantafyllou Jul 2012

The Optimal Control Of A Flexible Hull Robotic Undersea Vehicle Propelled By An Oscillating Foil, David Barrett, Mark Grosenbaugh, Michael Triantafyllou

David Barrett

Determining the optimal swimming motion for a flexible hull robotic undersea vehicle propelled by an oscillating foil is an acutely complex problem involving the vehicle's body kinematics and the hydrodynamics of the surrounding water. The overall intractability of the hydrodynamics of a flexible body precludes a purely analytical solution. The immense size of the experimental variable space prevents a purely empirical one. In order to overcome both difficulties, we have developed a self-optimizing motion controller based on a genetic algorithm. This controller effectively uses evolutionary principles to exponentially optimize swimming performance.