Study on Control System of Integrated Unmanned Surface Vehicle and Underwater Vehicle

Hyun Joon Cho; Sang-Ki Jeong; Dae-Hyeong Ji; Ngoc-Huy Tran; Mai The Vu; Hyeung-Sik Choi

doi:10.3390/s20092633

Study on Control System of Integrated Unmanned Surface Vehicle and Underwater Vehicle

Sensors (Basel). 2020 May 5;20(9):2633. doi: 10.3390/s20092633.

Authors

Hyun Joon Cho¹, Sang-Ki Jeong², Dae-Hyeong Ji³, Ngoc-Huy Tran⁴, Mai The Vu⁵, Hyeung-Sik Choi¹

Affiliations

¹ Division of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Maritime and Ocean University, 727 Taejong-ro, Yeongdo-gu, Busan 49112, Korea.
² Maritime ICT R&D Center, Korea Institute of Ocean Science & Technology, 385, Haeyang-ro, Yeongdo-gu, Busan 49111, Korea.
³ Marine Security and Safety Research Center, Korea Institute of Ocean Science & Technology, 385, Haeyang-ro, Yeongdo-gu, Busan 49111, Korea.
⁴ Dept of Control & Automation, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, 268 Ly Thuong Kiet St., Dist.10, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
⁵ School of Intelligent Mechatronics Engineering, Sejong University, 209, Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 05006, Korea.

Abstract

In this paper, in order to overcome certain limitations of previously commercialized platforms, a new integrated unmanned surface vehicle (USV) and unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) platform connected via underwater cable capable of acquiring real-time underwater data and long-time operation are studied. A catamaran-type USV was designed to overcome the limitations of an ocean environment and to play the role as the hub of power supply and communication for the integrated platform. Meanwhile, the UUV was designed as torpedo-shaped to minimize hydrodynamic resistance and its hardware design was focused on processing and sending the underwater camera and sonar data. The underwater cable driven by a winch system was installed to supply power from the USV to the UUV and to transmit acquired data form underwater sonar sensor or camera. Different from other previously studied cooperation system of USVs and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), the merit of the proposed system is real-time motion coordination control between the USV and UUV while transmitting large amount of data using the tether cable. The main focus of the study is coordination of the UUV with respect to the global positioning system (GPS) attached at USV and verification of its performance throughout field tests. Waypoint tracking control algorithm was designed and implemented on USV and relative heading, distance control for USV-UUV coordination was implemented to UUV. To ensure the integrity of the coordination control of the integrated platform, a study on accurate measurement system of the relative position between the USV and the UUV by using the GPS and the ultrashort baseline (USBL) device was performed. Individual tests were conducted to verify the performance of USBL and AHRS, which provide the position and heading data of UUV among the sensors mounted on the actual platform, and the effectiveness of the obtained sensor data is presented. Using the accurate measurement system, a number of field tests were conducted to verify the performance of the integrated platform.

Keywords: integrated system; offshore field test; underwater cable; unmanned surface vehicle (USV); unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV).