AUV^x — A novel miniaturized autonomous underwater vehicle

Abstract

Wiihìn the 3 year project DAEDALUS the battery powered underwater vehicle AUV <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">x</sup> was developed at DFKI. This autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is a novel, miniaturized exploration and research vehicle (see Fig. 1). The AUV <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">x</sup> can be operated both autonomous or remotely as a hybrid ROV with a near field optical communication modem or a copper wire cable. What makes this paper unique is that it describes the development of a system which has a high degree of miniaturization and the feature richness of much bigger systems: A complex heterogeneous processing architecture, sensor fusion of inertial data, a mathematical model of the robot and visual data which improves the AUVs pose and orientation estimation, a unique propulsion concept and the possibility to hover statically in the water column. Results of the design and build process with a strong focus on the CFD analysis and the evaluated model are presented. The system was successfully tested in water basins at DFKI.