TY - JOUR
T1 - Cooperative unmanned aerial and surface vehicles for extended coverage in maritime environments
AU - Santos, Matheus C.
AU - Bartlett, Ben
AU - Schneider, Vincent E.
AU - Brádaigh, Fiachra O.
AU - Blanck, Benjamin
AU - Santos, Phillipe C.
AU - Trslic, Petar
AU - Riordan, James
AU - Dooly, Gerard
PY - 2024/1/15
Y1 - 2024/1/15
N2 - Maritime operations, such as ship hull inspections, infrastructure assessments, and rapid response to emergencies, often expose humans to hazardous environments. The deployment of unmanned vehicles offers a potential solution to mitigate risks and reduce operational costs in such scenarios. Collaborative efforts between Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) can enhance mission endurance and portability. This paper introduces a cooperative UAV-USV system designed to expand the operational coverage area. It leverages off-the-shelf satellite-based technology to establish robust communication links between UAVs, USVs, and the ground station. This connection facilitates the development of an autonomous launch and recovery system, relying on GPS and visual servoing. Furthermore, the system incorporates a Battery Hot Swap-system (BHS) on the USV, allowing the UAV to resume its mission within 3 minutes. The effectiveness of this proposed solution was demonstrated through successful inspection trials conducted at the port of Hamburg, Germany.
AB - Maritime operations, such as ship hull inspections, infrastructure assessments, and rapid response to emergencies, often expose humans to hazardous environments. The deployment of unmanned vehicles offers a potential solution to mitigate risks and reduce operational costs in such scenarios. Collaborative efforts between Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) can enhance mission endurance and portability. This paper introduces a cooperative UAV-USV system designed to expand the operational coverage area. It leverages off-the-shelf satellite-based technology to establish robust communication links between UAVs, USVs, and the ground station. This connection facilitates the development of an autonomous launch and recovery system, relying on GPS and visual servoing. Furthermore, the system incorporates a Battery Hot Swap-system (BHS) on the USV, allowing the UAV to resume its mission within 3 minutes. The effectiveness of this proposed solution was demonstrated through successful inspection trials conducted at the port of Hamburg, Germany.
KW - autonomous landing
KW - autonomous navigation
KW - cooperative systems
KW - UAV
KW - Unmanned aerial vehicles
KW - unmanned surface vehicles
KW - USV
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85182951940&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3353046
DO - 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3353046
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85182951940
SN - 2169-3536
VL - 12
SP - 9206
EP - 9219
JO - IEEE Access
JF - IEEE Access
ER -