1P1-A12 AUVによる桟橋式水中構造物の全自動点検手法 : 画像と音響による相対測位

Abstract

This paper proposes a robust and practical positioning method of an underwater vehicle around support legs of on-water platforms. As our economic activity expands, some large-scale infrastructures such as runways and piers have been built as on-water platforms. Since such facilities are basis of national strength, it is very important to maintain their reliability through periodical inspection and patrol. The method enables an underwater vehicle, especially an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to operate around such structures in order to realize efficient and reliable maintenance of them. The key idea of the method is to stochastically update the vehicle's state relative to the support legs using two types of perceptional sensors, sonar and camera. This paper also reports the results of tank experiments using the AUV Tri-Dog 1.