An overview of autonomous marine robotic vehicle

During recent years, one can notice considerable growth in the use of autonomous sailing vehicle (ASV) with applications such as port protection, mines countermeasure, reconnaissance, surveillance missions and environmental monitoring. Marine robotics could be a promising technology for long-term missions and semi-persistent presence in the oceans, since it relies on renewable solar energy. Autonomy in terms of sailing decision will be achieved by innovative perception and navigation modules. The hardware architecture includes a comprehensive set of sensors and actuators along with a global positioning system (GPS). For obstacle detection, an omni-directional camera coupled with an inertial measurement unit and sonar will be used. For navigation and control of the vehicle, a potential based reactive path-planning approach is proposed. The software architecture would be developed such that it computes feasible headings as well as sail angle in real time.