Autonomous Control of the Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle in Collision Situation with Stationary Obstacle

Abstract The article considers the problem of autonomous control of the underwater remotely operated vehicle mini Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) in a collision situation with a stationary obstacle. The control of the collision avoidance process is presented as a synthesis of fuzzy proportional-differential controllers for the control of distance and orientation concerning the detected stationary obstacle. The control of the submergence depth of the underwater vehicle has been adopted as a separate control flow. A method to obtain the main motion parameters of the underwater vehicle relative to the detected stationary obstacle using a Laser-based Vision System (LVS) and a pressure sensor coupled to an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) is described and discussed. The result of computer implementation of the designed fuzzy controllers for collision avoidance is demonstrated in simulation tests and experiments carried out with the mini ROV in the test pool.