Abstract

Abstract
This paper describes the initial design phase of the software control architecture for the AUV MARIUS. This research effort is part of a long term project that aims to enable the prototype vehicle to carry out environmental surveying missions in coastal waters, in a completely autonomous mode. Throughout the project, MARIUS will be used as an advanced testbed to test developments in the areas of Mission Planning and real-time Mission Execution Systems for AUV's.

Abstract
The design and development of the Swordfish Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV) system is discussed. Swordfish is an ocean capable 4.5m long catamaran designed for network centric operations (with ocean and air going vehicles and human operators). In the basic configuration, Swordfish is both a survey vehicle and a communications node with gateways for broadband, Wi-Fi and GSM transports and underwater acoustic modems. In another configuration, Swordfish mounts a docking station for the autonomous underwater vehicle Isurus from Porto University. Swordfish has an advanced control architecture for multi-vehicle operations with mixed initiative interactions (human operators are allowed to interact with the control loops).

Abstract
This paper propose a real-time vision framework for mobile robotics and describes the current implementation. The pipeline structure further reduces latency and allows a paralleled hardware implementation. A dedicated hardware vision sensor was developed in order to take advantage of the proposed architecture. The real-time characteristics and hardware partial implementation, coupled with low energy consumption address typical autonomous systems applications. A characterization of the implemented system in the Robocup scenario, during competition matches, is presented.

Abstract
The coordinated use of multiple Autonomous Underwater Vehicles can provide important advantages for oceanographic missions. One important mission application scenario can be the search of underwater plumes such as sources of freshwater of hydrotermal vents. These plumes characterize the environment by creating a gradient field of some measurable physical quantity. An innovative integrated acoustic navigation system and coordination control maneuver for a formation of 3 AUVs and I surface craft to gradient search and following missions is proposed. The specific formation geometry and topology takes in account the navigation and coordination requirements. It was designed to achieve an efficient, low cost and technically feasible solution. The system can operate in 3 modes depending on formation distances. Varying pinging rates and offsets are used to communicate parameters and mode changing. No additional underwater communication systems neither acoustic transponder deployment are needed for the vehicle coordination. This way a high degree of energy efficiency and overall mission low cost and simpler logistics is achieved. The hybrid nature of the coordinating maneuver allows the formation gradient survey and following with the efficient exploitation of the environment structuring by the phenomena to be studied. The individual control laws were designed in order to minimize the inter-vehicle communication. The coordination factors are the knowledge by the vehicles of each other behavior (since all vehicles execute the same control laws) and the detection of formation distortions. These distortions are detected by the relative navigation system. The proposed approach allows the low cost implementation of a multiple AUV coordinating control for a large range of oceanographic missions.

Abstract
Three classes of oceanographic addressing relevant distinct scientific and applied objectives in the Portuguese coastal waters are examined. Then, by assuming some mission organizations in the light of the current technological state-of-art, a set of functionalities required for an operational system are extracted. Finally, some requirements for the design and development of such a class of systems are discussed.