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Trajectory Planning for Hybrid Unmanned Aerial Underwater Vehicles with Smooth Media Transition

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Abstract

In the last decade, a great effort has been employed in the study of Hybrid Unmanned Aerial Underwater Vehicles, robots that can easily fly and dive into the water with different levels of mechanical adaptation. However, most of this literature is concentrated on physical design, practical issues of construction, and, more recently, low-level control strategies. Little has been done in the context of high-level intelligence, such as motion planning and interactions with the real world. Therefore, we proposed in this paper a trajectory planning approach that allows collision avoidance against unknown obstacles and smooth transitions between aerial and aquatic media. Our method is based on a variant of the classic Rapidly-exploring Random Tree, whose main advantages are the capability to deal with obstacles, complex nonlinear dynamics, model uncertainties, and external disturbances. The approach uses the dynamic model of the HyDrone, a hybrid vehicle proposed with high underwater performance, but we believe it can be easily generalized to other types of aerial/aquatic platforms. In the experimental section, we present simulated results in environments filled with obstacles, where the robot is commanded to perform different media movements, demonstrating the applicability of our strategy.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partly supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG), Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), RoboCup Brazil and PRH-ANP.

Funding

National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) and Human Resources Program from National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (PRH-ANP).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. NAUTEC, Centro de Ciências Computacionais, University of Fed. do Rio Grande – FURG, Rio Grande, Brazil

    Pedro M. Pinheiro, Ricardo B. Grando, Vivian M. Aoki, Dayana S. Cardoso & Paulo L. J. Drews Jr.

  2. Electronic Engineering Department, University of Fed. de Minas Gerais, MG, Brazil

    Armando A. Neto

  3. Universidade de Campinas, Rio Grande, Brazil

    César B. da Silva

  4. AuRos Robotics, Rio Grande, Brazil

    Alexandre C. Horn

Authors
  1. Pedro M. Pinheiro
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  2. Armando A. Neto
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  3. Ricardo B. Grando
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  4. César B. da Silva
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  5. Vivian M. Aoki
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  6. Dayana S. Cardoso
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  7. Alexandre C. Horn
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  8. Paulo L. J. Drews Jr.
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Contributions

– Pedro Miranda Pinheiro conceived the research, wrote the article, surveyed the literature, and contributed to the vehicle modeling and simulation.

– Armando Alves Neto conceived the research, wrote the article, designed the planning algorithm, collected and processed the test data.

– Ricardo Bedin Grando wrote the article and surveyed the literature.

– César Bastos da Silva wrote the article and contributed to the vehicle modeling and simulation.

– Vivian Misaki Aoki wrote the article and contributed to the vehicle modeling and simulation.

– Dayana Santos Cardoso wrote the article and contributed to the vehicle modeling and simulation.

– Alexandre Campos Horn proposed the vehicle and contributed to the modeling.

– Paulo Lilles Jorge Drews Jr. conceived the research, wrote the article, and discussed the main ideas of the article.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Armando A. Neto.

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Pinheiro, P.M., Neto, A.A., Grando, R.B. et al. Trajectory Planning for Hybrid Unmanned Aerial Underwater Vehicles with Smooth Media Transition. J Intell Robot Syst 104, 46 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-021-01567-z

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