AUV Rendezvous Trajectories Generation for Underwater Recovery
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16th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation Congress Centre, Ajaccio, France June 25-27, 2008 AUV Rendezvous Trajectories Generation for Underwater Recovery Oleg A. Yakimenko, Douglas P. Horner, and Douglas G. Pratt, Jr. Abstract — For many years, autonomous underwater vehicles recovering of a larger diameter AUV through the torpedo tube (AUVs) have been developed and employed for a myriad of tasks. [3]. Instead of recovering to a docking station aft of the sail the Their ability to accurately collect and monitor oceanic conditions recovery path would be to the recovery arm deployed out of makes them a valuable asset for a variety of naval missions. the torpedo tube. That said, in the future there may be many Deploying and recovering AUVs, however, is currently largely AUVs deployed from the submarine, in that case deploying limited to surface vessels or swimmers. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that by using a mathematical technique called and recovering from the torpedo tube may not be practical. a direct method of calculus of variations, it is possible for an Also, there has been recent work on AUV to AUV AUV to autonomously compute and execute a trajectory that will rendezvous for enabling high speed communication [4]. This allow for recovery by a submerged mobile recovery system work uses optimal control theory for calculating time and (another AUV, submarine, etc.). The algorithm ensures that a energy optimal solutions for the rendezvous path. smooth trajectory is produced that, while not traditionally optimal, is realistic and still close to the optimal solution. Also, Unfortunately, indirect method solutions cannot be computed using this technique allows the trajectory to be computed very in real-time (if at all), and use very simplified models, so they rapidly allowing it to be recomputed every couple of seconds to are not practical and flexible enough for a real-time accommodate sudden changes, possible adjustments and implementation on an AUV except under a specific, relatively different disturbances, and therefore to be used in the real life. narrow set of conditions. Keywords : Marine control, Real-time control, Optimization, Unmanned In a real life situation, however, the rendezvous would be systems. unlikely to have ideal conditions. The supporting vessel may need to maneuver to avoid a collision, currents may change I. INTRODUCTION the approach geometry, speed adjustments may need to be utonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) have been of made, etc. All these changes could obviously jeopardize an A great interest to the United States Navy for quite some ideal time variant solution. Therefore, a method that is not time. This interest began in 1994 with the Navy Unmanned time-variant must be pursued. While not necessarily optimal Underwater Vehicles (UUV) Program Plan which promoted in the classical control theory sense, such a solution should be research and development for the employment of AUVs from feasible and good enough to allow for autonomous AUV submarines for mine warfare (MIW) and tactical recovery, while still taking into consideration the factors of oceanography. Since 1994 AUV concepts of operations optimization. (CONOPS) have been proposed through the UUV Master This paper deals with employing the direct method of Plan, the Small UUV Strategic Plan, and Sea Power 21 [1,2]. calculus of variations to generate rendezvous trajectories in Further mission areas may include Intelligence, Surveillance, faster than a real-time scale. That means that the CPU time and Reconnaissance (ISR), Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), should be of the order of 1% of the maneuver time. Direct Communication/Navigation Network Node (CN3), payload methods introduced in dynamic optimization of the delivery, Information Operations (IO), Time Critical Strike trajectories of aerospace vehicles in the 1950’s were a very (TCS), barrier patrol, and sea base support [1]. It has been robust way of controlling a vehicle. It assured all boundary over 13 years since the original concept of using AUVs was conditions and possible dynamic constraints were satisfied, proposed and the CONOPS for AUV employment continues and provided a smooth path for the entire trajectory using only to increase. a few varied parameters. Similarly, this methodology can Currently there are limited options to autonomously launch satisfy both time and speed constraints for the case of AUV and recover AUVs from surface vessels and submarines. The recovery fairly easily, while providing a near-optimal ability to accomplish this will dramatically increase the utility real-time solution. of AUVs. To do so, the AUVs must have the autonomy The paper is organized as follows. Section II introduces the necessary to plan and execute non-linear trajectories both to general scenario for the development of a path-planning and away from the supporting vessel. methodology, which should generate trajectories for the Recently there has been a demonstration of launching and recovery of an AUV to a mobile docking station [5]. Section III addresses the AUV model needed to develop a controller. Manuscript received December 31, 2007. Section IV introduces the key aspects of the proposed O. A. Yakimenko is with the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA approach to compute rendezvous trajectories and explains the 93943-5107 USA (phone: 831-656-2826; fax: 831-656-3125; e-mail: [email protected]). factors affecting the shape of the path. Finally, Section V D. P. Horner and D. G. Pratt, Jr. are with the NPS as well. presents some simulation results. The paper ends with 978-1-4244-2505-1/08/$20.00 ©2008 IEEE 1192 Authorized licensed use limited to: Naval Postgraduate School. Downloaded on February 9, 2010 at 12:23 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. conclusions. 2) commanding it to proceed to a rendezvous point by a certain time. The AUV computes the trajectory and II. PROBLEM FORMULATION acknowledges or denies the command (stage A on Fig.1). A This paper addresses a general scenario for autonomous denial would correspond to a violation of some constraint with recovery of the AUV by a mobile underwater recovery system a request to order another point or a different time to (MURS), which can be another AUV, docking station towed rendezvous. The final point of the trajectory is located from a surface ship, submarine, etc. It is assumed that this approximately where the docking station would be located on mission will proceed in a several stages as follows: the MURS in a given time. Knowing the geometry of the − the AUV has completed its mission and returns to a MURS allows an avoidance area to be constructed that predetermined loitering point at a predetermined time; corresponds to the aft control surfaces and the screw. The − the MURS sends a message to the AUV suggesting a trajectory needs to avoid this area. Once agreed, both the rendezvous point (area) and time; AUV and the MURS proceed to position 3 for rendezvous − the AUV plans a trajectory to rendezvous with the MURS (stage B) and by position 4 the recovery operation (stage C) is at a given position and time and sends an acknowledgment complete. back to the MURS; − the AUV executes the plan and recovers to the MURS. − as the AUV gets close to the MURS, final navigation to the recovery platform is accomplished through a homing transponder. With this recovery methodology, there are a couple of points worth expanding upon. First, once the AUV has returned to the loitering point, the MURS must be in an area to ensure the best chance of communicating with and recovering the vehicle. In this paper we assume the MURS will maintain a rectangular racetrack (however, from the algorithmic standpoint it does not really matter, so that a circular or any other track could be used instead). Fig. 1. Proposed rendezvous scenario. Second, once the vehicle has planned and started to execute the trajectory to the MURS, the trajectory must be updatable Once again, the explored rendezvous scenario assumes to handle disturbances (unmodeled dynamics, currents) and three stages: communication (A), execution (B), and recovery different unforeseen events. These events include the cases (C), respectively. From the trajectory generation standpoint when the MURS maneuvers inadvertently or the AUV must we are primarily concerned with optimizing the path that conduct reactive obstacle avoidance during the execution of would bring the AUV from its current position (point 2) to a the rendezvous path. certain rendezvous state (point 3) in the preset (handshaked Third, it is assumed that the preferred method for with the MURS) time Tr, while obeying all possible real-life recovering the AUV is for it to approach from the port or constraints and avoiding MURS fins/screw area. starboard aft quarter of MURS and maneuver to the final recovery location. The trajectory of the vehicle must be such III. VEHICLE MODEL that it avoids running the vehicle into the control or propulsion The Autonomous Vehicles Lab at the Naval Postgraduate surfaces while the vehicle makes its approach to the recovery School operates with several vehicles, including the REMUS device. AUV. The REMUS vehicle is commercially produced by Fourth, it is envisioned that a signal can be transmitted to Hydroid, Inc in Pocasset, MA (www.hydroid.com). A variant AUV that includes some basic parameters, such as position, of the REMUS vehicle is currently used by the U.S. Navy for course, depth, and rendezvous time, so that the AUV could littoral MIW. It has a proven and long standing employment autonomously plan a path to rendezvous with the MURS for history within the U.S. Navy and was successfully used in recovery. support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) for Mine In this rendezvous scenario, the MURS would establish a Countermeasures (MCM) in 2002. It is employed by several race track, which allows it to travel back and forth along two other Navies including the United Kingdom, Australia, and long track legs (see Fig.1).