A novel self-contained navigation system has been devised for underwater vehicles operating in and around offshore installations. Remotely operated vehicles (ROV) play a vital role in the inspection and maintenance of offshore installations. Tasks include the observation of divers, cleaning of structural members, video inspection and the deployment of survey instruments. Accurate navigation is often crucial for the successful completion of these tasks. The vehicle must be guided from its launch point to the work site, which may not be immediately recognizable. The navigation system is self contained and is suitable for tethered or autonomous vehicles. The primary navigation sensor is a sector-scanning sonar device which is mounted on the vehicle in a forwardlooking mode. Vehicle heading is measured by a directional gyroscope. Pitch and roll are measured by a vertical reference gyro or inclinometers and the water depth is determined by measurement of the ambient water pressure. For each receiving beam direction, the sonar provides the range to the nearest reflecting surface. The segmentation stage groups these first return such that each group or cluster of points originates from a single structural member. This is done by comparing the range of the first return points in adjacent beams. If this range separation is below a predefined threshold, then the points belong to the same cluster. Given the model of an offshore installation and the sonar data clusters, the purpose of the matching stage is to assign clusters to individual structural members. The matching problem has been formulated as a constraint satisfaction problem and is solved by a tree search algorithm. This attempts to identify individual clusters by comparing the geometrical relationship between the clusters with the model configuration. . Given the correspondence between the data clusters and model elements, the final processing stage is to determine the pose (position and orientation) of the vehicle.


    Access

    Access via TIB

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Geometrical aspects of a sonar-based navigation system for underwater vehicles


    Additional title:

    Geometrische Aspekte eines Navigationssystems auf Sonarbasis für Unterwasserfahrzeuge


    Contributors:
    McLaren, N. (author) / Kuo, C. (author)

    Published in:

    Ocean Engineering ; 23 , 2 ; 201-217


    Publication date :

    1996


    Size :

    17 Seiten, 7 Bilder, 15 Quellen




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English




    Sonar Based Navigation System for an Underwater Vehicle

    Smith, R. / Frost, A. / Probert, P. | British Library Online Contents | 1998


    Underwater sonar device based on inertial navigation

    ZHANG QI / WU SONG / LI KUN et al. | European Patent Office | 2023

    Free access

    Underwater sonar installation device for ship navigation

    ZHENG PING / QI XIAOFENG / CHENG KUANHONG et al. | European Patent Office | 2023

    Free access

    Active sonar-based bottom-following for unmanned underwater vehicles

    Caccia, M. / Bruzzone, G. / Veruggio, G. | Tema Archive | 1999


    NEW INTELLIGENT SONAR SYSTEM TECHNOLOGY FOR AUTONOMOUS UNDERWATER VEHICLES

    Pailhas, Y. / Capus, C. / Brown, N.V.K. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2014