• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.566-573
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• 2014

This paper presents the results of an integrated navigation performance analysis for selecting the sensor of an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) using Monte Carlo numerical simulation. An inertial measurement unit (IMU) and Doppler velocity log (DVL) are considered to build the integrated navigation system. The position error and price of the sensor are selected as performance indices to evaluate the volunteer integrated navigation systems. Monte-Carlo simulation is introduced to analyze the circular error probability (CEP) and its variance. Simulation results provide the proper sensor combination for integrated navigation in relation to the performance and price.

• International Journal of Ocean System Engineering
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.102-109
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• 2011

This paper describes the implementation of a precise underwater navigation solution using a multiple sensor fusion technique based on USBL, GPS, DVL and AHRS measurements for the operation of a remotely operated mine disposal vehicle (MDV). The estimation of accurate 6DOF positions and attitudes is the key factor in executing dangerous and complicated missions. To implement the precise underwater navigation, two strategies are chosen in this paper. Firstly, the sensor frame alignment to the body frame is conducted to enhance the performance of a standalone dead-reckoning algorithm. Secondly, absolute position data measured by USBL is fused to prevent cumulative integration error. The heading alignment error is identified by comparing the measured absolute positions with the DR algorithm results. The performance of the developed approach is evaluated with the experimental data acquired by MDV in the South-sea trial.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.644-652
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• 2013

This paper describes the development and field experiments of Manta-type Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV). Various simulations for Manta UUV are performed by using the nonlinear 6-DOF motion of equations. Through this simulation we verified the motion performances of Manta UUV. To acquire the blueprint of Manta UUV, it was designed with the simulation results. The Manta UUV uses a Doppler Velocity Log (DVL), gyrocompass, GPS, pressure sensor and other minor sensors, applied to measure the motion, position and path of Manta UUV. For its propulsion and changing a direction in the underwater, one vertical fin and four horizontal fins are installed at the hull of UUV. The Manta UUV system was verified with motion and autonomous navigation test at field.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.46-51
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• 2010

This paper describes the implementation of a precise underwater navigation solution using a multi-sensor fusion technique based on USBL, DVL, and IMU measurements. To implement this precise underwater navigation solution, three strategies are chosen. The first involves heading alignment angle identification to enhance the performance of a standalone dead-reckoning algorithm. In the second, the absolute position is found quickly to prevent the accumulation of integration error. The third one is the introduction of an effective outlier rejection algorithm. The performance of the developed algorithm was verified with experimental data acquired by the deep-sea ROV, Hemire, in the East-sea during a survey of a methane gas seepage area at a 1,500 m depth.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.32-38
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• 2020

This paper describes a method for tracking attitude and position of underwater robots. Underwater work with underwater robots is subject to differences in work efficiency depending on the skill of the operator and the utilization of additional sensors. Therefore, this study developed an underwater robot that can operate autonomously and maintain a certain attitude when working underwater to reduce difference of work efficiency. The developed underwater robot uses 8 thrusters to control 6 degrees of freedom motion, IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), DVL (Doppler Velocity Log) and PS (Pressure Sensor) to measure attitude and position. In addition, the thruster allocation algorithm was designed to follow the control desired value using 8 thrusters, and the motion control experiments were performed in the engineering water basin using the thruster allocation method.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.702-708
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• 2013

Underwater TRN (Underwater Terrain Referenced Navigation) estimates an underwater vehicle state by measuring a distance between the vehicle and undersea terrain, and comparing it with the known terrain database. TRN belongs to absolute navigation methods, which are used to compensate a drift error of dead reckoning measurements such as IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) or DVL (Doppler Velocity Log). However, underwater TRN is different to other absolute methods such as USBL (Ultra-Short Baseline) and LBL (Long Baseline), because TRN is independent of the external environment. As a magnetic-field-based navigation, TRN is a kind of geophysical navigation. This paper develops an EKF (Extended Kalman Filter) formulation for underwater TRN. A filter propagation part is composed by an inertial navigation system, and a filter update is executed with echo-sounder measurement. For large-initial-error cases, an adaptive EKF approach is also presented, to keep the filter be stable. At the end, simulation studies are given to verify the performance of the proposed TRN filter. With simplified sensor and terrain database models, the simulation results show that the underwater TRN could support conventional underwater navigation methods.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.28-38
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• 2014

This paper verifies the performance of Extended Kalman Filter(EKF) and MCL(Monte Carlo Localization) approach to localization of an underwater vehicle through experiments. Especially, the experiments use acoustic range sensor whose measurement accuracy and uncertainty is not yet proved. Along with localization, the experiment also discloses the uncertainty features of the range measurement such as bias and variance. The proposed localization method rejects outlier range data and the experiment shows that outlier rejection improves localization performance. It is as expected that the proposed method doesn't yield as precise location as those methods which use high priced DVL(Doppler Velocity Log), IMU(Inertial Measurement Unit), and high accuracy range sensors. However, it is noticeable that the proposed method can achieve the accuracy which is affordable for correction of accumulated dead reckoning error, even though it uses only range data of low reliability and accuracy.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.108-118
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• 2017

This paper presents experimental results of realtime sonar-based SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) using probability-based landmark-recognition. The sonar-based SLAM is used for navigation of underwater robot. Inertial sensor as IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) and DVL (Doppler Velocity Log) and external information from sonar image processing are fused by Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) technique to get the navigation information. The vehicle location is estimated by inertial sensor data, and it is corrected by sonar data which provides relative position between the vehicle and the landmark on the bottom of the basin. For the verification of the proposed method, the experiments were performed in a basin environment using an underwater robot, yShark.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.24 no.11
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• pp.1417-1423
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• 2020

This paper proposes a waypoint guidance algorithm for the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle(AUV). The proposed simplified guidance algorithm is presented, which is combined LOS guidance and cross-track guidance for path following. Cross-track error is calculated using the position of the AUV and reference path. LOS guidance and cross-track guidance are appropriately changed according to cross-track error. And the stability of the system has been improved using variable cross-track control gain by cross-track error. Also, in this paper, navigation hardware in-the loop simulation(HILS) is implemented to verify navigation algorithm of AUV that performs combined navigation using inertial navigation device and doppler velocity log(DVL). Finally, we design integrated system HILS (including navigation HILS) for performance verification of guidance algorithm of the autonomous underwater vehicle. By comparing the sea test result with HILS result, the proposed guidance algorithm and HILS configuration were confirmed be correct.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.168-177
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• 2019

KRISO (Korea Research Institute of Ship & Ocean Engineering) started a project to develop the core algorithms for autonomous intervention using an underwater robot in 2017. This paper introduces the development of the robot platform for the core algorithms, which is an ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) type with one 7-function manipulator. Before the detailed design of the robot platform, the 7E-MINI arm of the ECA Group was selected as the manipulator. It is an electrical type, with a weight of 51 kg in air (30 kg in water) and a full reach of 1.4 m. To design a platform with a small size and light weight to fit in a water tank, the medium-size manipulator was placed on the center of platform, and the structural analysis of the body frame was conducted by ABAQUS. The robot had an IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), a DVL (Doppler Velocity Log), and a depth sensor for measuring the underwater position and attitude. To control the robot motion, eight thrusters were installed, four for vertical and the rest for horizontal motion. The operation system was composed of an on-board control station and operation S/W. The former included devices such as a 300 VDC power supplier, Fiber-Optic (F/O) to Ethernet communication converter, and main control PC. The latter was developed using an ROS (Robot Operation System) based on Linux. The basic performance of the manufactured robot platform was verified through a water tank test, where the robot was manually operated using a joystick, and the robot motion and attitude variation that resulted from the manipulator movement were closely observed.