Abstract
This paper describes an underwater acoustic sensor network consisting of a heterogeneous robotic swarm used for long-term monitoring of underwater environments. The swarm consists of a large number of underwater robots acting as sensor nodes with limited movement capabilities, and a few surface robots aiding them in accomplishing underwater monitoring scenarios. Main interactions between two types of robots include underwater sensor deployment and relocation, energy and data exchange, and acoustic localisation aiding. Hardware capabilities of each vehicle are described in detail. Inter-agent communication is split into two layers: surface and underwater communication. Surface communication utilises wireless communication using WiFi routers configured for decentralised routing. Underwater communication mainly uses acoustic communication which, when used within a large swarm, poses a challenging task because of high probability of interference and data loss. The acoustic communication protocol used to prevent these issues is presented in detail. Finally, more complex functionalities of the robotic swarm are presented, including several results from real-life experiments.
Highlights
Over 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by ocean, and yet the underwater still remains largely unknown and unexplored
It consists of a transmitter coil, connected to the appropriate printed circuit board (PCB), which is connected to the power supply and receiver coil connected to the PCB, which is connected to the aMussel battery charger
In this paper an implementation of a heterogeneous robotic swarm designed for long-term autonomous monitoring of marine environments was described
Summary
Over 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by ocean, and yet the underwater still remains largely unknown and unexplored. Where traditional underwater monitoring systems utilise expensive and complex individual agents and subsystems for data collection, UASNs replace these individual monitoring systems with smaller and less expensive underwater sensor nodes housing a wide variety of sensors—temperature, pressure, turbidity, and salinity sensors, among others These underwater nodes use acoustic methods of communication and localisation. The aMussel underwater sensor nodes come equipped with a variety of sensors for collecting relevant data, an acoustic modem for underwater communication and localisation, and an active buoyancy system that enables vertical motion and provides them with their sole independent movement method. Since they have no other actuators, for most complex movement they must rely on assistance from the aPads.
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