Investigation of portability of space docking techniques for autonomous underwater docking

Abstract

This document presents a study of space docking strategies and their applicability for autonomous underwater docking. While autonomous docking is already used in space, there are only a few examples in the underwater environment. This study analyses current space docking techniques and identifies the key areas, which are portable in the underwater domain. Space and underwater environments are quite different, and this implies a great difference in the sensors which can be used. However, it is shown that some ideas and some techniques can be transferred, with the necessary adaptations, from the space to the underwater environment.