Abstract
Autonomous Surface Vessels (ASVs) have been involved in numerous projects since the 1990s. Many ASV projects have been successfully realized, and as many are still under development. Together with the development of those new autonomous vessels, the research on classification about ASVs has become important. The classifications provide clarity to researchers, designers, shipbuilders, equipment manufacturers, ship owners and operators, enabling accurate specification of the desired level of autonomy in design and operations. Moreover, the involved research paves the way to a clearer understanding of the opportunity and challenges of research on autonomous vehicles.
In this paper, we introduce the emerging concept of autonomous vessels. A multi-layer multi-agent control architecture of cooperative transport systems from the perspective of ASVs is proposed. Moreover, we provide an overview of existing research on the classification of autonomy. Based on the analysis, a detailed definition and categorization of autonomy levels for ASVs is proposed starting from the characteristics of ASVs and existing classification of autonomy. The proposed autonomy levels categorization assesses the overall autonomy level of a vessel by analyzing the automated sub-systems: Decision, Actions, Exceptions, and Cooperation. This categorization can be used to analyze existing ASV prototypes to gain insight into the status and trend of ASV research.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Levels of driving automation are defined in new SAE International standard J3016 (2016). https://goo.gl/gCIFCm
Taxonomy and Definitions for Terms Related to Driving Automation Systems for On-Road Motor Vehicles (2016). https://goo.gl/AnXwcj
Bertram, V.: Towards Unmanned Ships. Presentation (2013). https://goo.gl/YrOgFb
Caccia, M., Bono, R., Bruzzone, G., Bruzzone, G., Spirandelli, E., Veruggio, G., Stortini, A.M.: Design and exploitation of an autonomous surface vessel for the study of sea-air interactions. In: Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Shatin, N.T., China, pp. 3582–3587 (2005)
Campbell, S., Naeem, W., Irwin, G.W.: A Review on Improving the Autonomy of Unmanned Surface Vehicles Through Intelligent Collision Avoidance Manoeuvres. Annual Reviews in Control 36(2), 267–283 (2012)
Chen, L., Negenborn, R.R., Lodewijks, G.: Path planning for autonomous inland vessels using A*BG. In: Paias, A., Ruthmair, M., Voß, S. (eds.) ICCL 2016. LNCS, vol. 9855, pp. 65–79. Springer, Cham (2016). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-44896-1_5
Codiga, D.L.: A Marine Autonomous Surface Craft for Long-Duration, Spatially Explicit, Multidisciplinary Water Column Sampling in Coastal and Estuarine Systems. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 32(3), 627–641 (2014)
Curcio, J., Leonard, J., Patrikalakis, A.: SCOUT - a low cost autonomous surface platform for research in cooperative autonomy. In: Proceedings of OCEANS 2005 MTS/IEEE, Washington, D.C., USA, vol. 1, pp. 725–729 (2005)
Giger, L., Wismer, S., Boehl, S., Busser, G., Erckens, H., Weber, J., Moser, P., Schwizer, P., Pradalier, C., Yves, R.S.: Design and construction of the autonomous sailing vessel AVALON. In: Proceedings of The World Robotic Sailing Championship and International Robotic Sailing Conference, Matosinhos, Portugal, pp. 17–22 (2009)
Hitz, G., Pomerleau, F., Garneau, M.E., Pradalier, C., Posch, T., Pernthaler, J., Siegwart, R.Y.: Autonomous Inland Water Monitoring: Design and Application of a Surface Vessel 19(1), 62–72 (2012)
Holler, J., Striz, A., Bretney, K., Kavett, K., Bingham, B.: Design, construction, and field testing of an autonomous surface craft for engineering and science education. In: Proceedings of OCEANS 2007, Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom, pp. 1–6 (2007)
Idland, T.K.: Marine Cybernetics Vessel CS Saucer: Design, Construction and Control. Master’s thesis, NTNU (2015)
Lloyd’s Register: ShipRight Procedure - Autonomous Ships (2016). https://goo.gl/ROyXyD
Miller, P., Beal, B., Capron, C., Gawboy, R., Mallory, P., Ness, C., Petrosik, R., Pryne, C., Murphy, T., Spears, H.: Increasing Performance and Added Capabilities of USNA Sail-Powered Autonomous Surface Vessels (ASV). Tech. rep, DTIC Document (2010)
MUNIN: Research in Maritime Autonomous Systems Project Results and Technology Potentials. Tech. rep., Maritime Unmanned Navigation through Intelligence in Networks (2016)
Parasuraman, R., Sheridan, T.B., Wickens, C.D.: A Model for Types and Levels of Human Interaction with Automation. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics - Part A: Systems and Humans 30(3), 286–297 (2000)
Polvara, R., Sharma, S., Sutton, R., Wan, J., Manning, A.: Toward a multi-agent system for marine observation. In: Advances in Cooperative Robotics: Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Clawar 2016, p. 225. World Scientific, London (2016)
Rodriguez-Ortiz, C.D.: Automated Bathymetry Mapping Using an Autonomous Surface Craft. Master’s thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1996)
Rolls-Royce: Remote and Autonomous Ships: The next steps. White paper (2016). https://goo.gl/GJTMaZ
Santos, D., Silva Junior, A.G., Negreiros, A., Vilas Boas, J., Alvarez, J., Araujo, A., Aroca, R.V., Gonçalves, L.M.G.: Design and Implementation of a Control System for a Sailboat Robot. Robotics 5(1), 1–5 (2016)
Sauze, C., Neal, M.: An autonomous sailing robot for ocean observation. In: Proceedings of Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems 2006 (TAROS 2006), Guildford, United Kingdom, vol. 2006, pp. 190–197 (2006)
Schiaretti, M., Chen, L., Negenborn, R.R.: Survey on autonomous surface vessels: Part II - categorization of 60 prototypes and future applications. In: Proceedings of 8th International Conference on Computational Logistics (ICCL 2017). Southampton, UK, October 18–20, 2017
Sheridan, T.B., Verplank, W.L.: Human and computer control of undersea teleoperators. Tech. rep, DTIC Document (1978)
Sliwka, J., Reilhac, P., Leloup, R., Crepier, P., Roncin, K., Aizier, B., Jaulin, L.: Autonomous robotic boat of ENSIETA. In: Proceedings of 2nd International Robotic Sailing Conference, Matosinhos, Portugal, pp. 1–7 (2009)
TU Delft: Tu Delfia-1 in action (2017). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqAfWIkEGUI&feature=youtu.be
Tvete, H.A.: ReVolt : The Unmanned, Zero Emission, Short Sea Ship of the Future. Dnv Gl Strategic Research & Innovation (2015)
Tvete, H.A., Engelhardtsen, Ø.: DNV GL’s research within Autonomous Systems. Presentation (2014). https://goo.gl/Uz44zJ
Wang, J., Gu, W., Zhu, J.: Design of an autonomous surface vehicle used for marine environment monitoring. In: Proceedings of International Conference on Advanced Computer Control, 2009, Singapore, Singapore, pp. 405–409 (2009)
Zheng, H., Negenborn, R.R., Lodewijks, G.: Model predictive control of a waterborne agv at the operational level. In: Proceedings of the International Maritime and Port Technology and Development Conference (MTEC 2014), Trondheim, Norway, pp. 99–108 (2014)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Schiaretti, M., Chen, L., Negenborn, R.R. (2017). Survey on Autonomous Surface Vessels: Part I - A New Detailed Definition of Autonomy Levels. In: Bektaş, T., Coniglio, S., Martinez-Sykora, A., Voß, S. (eds) Computational Logistics. ICCL 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10572. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68496-3_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68496-3_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-68495-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-68496-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)