UNION: UNderwater Intelligent Operation and Navigation
Résumé
The main goal of the {\sc Union} {\sc Esprit} Basic Research Action is to develop methods for increasing the autonomy and intelligence of Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles ({\sc Rov}). The project focuses mainly on the development of coordinated control and sensing strategies for combined manipulator and vehicle systems. Both fundamental theories and methods for the design of these heterogeneous systems are investigated and concern: dynamic modeling and control for arm/base stabilization, use of sensory information (camera, sonars, lasers..) for pipeline inspection, navigation, programming, etc. Experimental and simulated results validated the theoretical developments. A complex canonical mission in the field of offshore Inspection Maintenance and Repair tasks was chosen to illustrate the integration of all the results. The {\sc Union} project brings together seven European research groups working on underwater vehicles, robotics and intelligent sensing systems: (1){\sc Ifremer}, Subsea Robotics Laboratory (FR), (2) {\sc Inria}, SophiaAntipolis, {\sc Icare} Team (FR), (3) {\sc Lirmm-Cnrs}, Robotics Laboratory (FR), (4) {\sc Upc}, Polytechnical University Barcelona (S), (5){\sc Lbm}, Technical University Muenchen (D), (6){\sc Hwu}, Heriot Watt University (UK), (7) Oxford University~(UK).