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Frontier Research in Unmanned Underwater Vehicles
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Frontier Research in Unmanned Underwater Vehicles

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Vehicular Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2022) | Viewed by 6937

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Zheng Zeng

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Interests: autonomous marine vehicles; hybrid aerial underwater vehicles; path planning, guidance and control
Dr. Amirmehdi Yazdani

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Discipline of Engineering and Energy, College of Science, Health, Engineering and Education, Murdoch University, Perth, WA 6150, Australia
Interests: autonomous systems; intelligent control; optimization; AI in renewable systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Somaiyeh MahmoudZadeh

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Information Technology, Faculty of Science Engineering & Built Environment, Deakin University, Geelong, VIC 3220, Australia
Interests: autonomous arial, underwater and surface vehicles; autonomy and situational awareness; mission and path planning; AI-based decision-making frameworks
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Yuanchang Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, Torrington Place, London WC1E 7JE, UK
Interests: marine autonomous systems; machine learning; scene recognition and perception; motion planning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) have been proposed for a large spectrum of applications, ranging from environmental monitoring, ocean floor mapping, search and rescue operations, tracking of multiple targets, surveillance and reconnaissance, etc. Frontier research in UUVs will enable new operations, such as executing very long endurance missions with minimal supervision in unknown, dynamic, and hostile environments. Many recent efforts towards improving UUV intelligence and persistence focus on improvements in artificial intelligence technologies, reduced hotel load, drag, efficient propulsion, advanced communication, navigation and guidance techniques, and overall system reliability.

In this Special Issue, the frontier research in intelligence and persistent autonomy for UUVs is addressed, with particular emphasis on the design, kinematics, dynamics, sensing, communication, planning, navigation, control, and application of UUVs.

Dr. Zheng Zeng
Dr. Amirmehdi Yazdani
Dr. Somaiyeh MahmoudZadeh
Dr. Yuanchang Liu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Novel system design of UUVs
  • Modular, hybrid, and reconfigurable UUV systems
  • Bioinspired UUVs
  • Ocean observing and sampling with UUVs
  • Modern AI technologies for UUVs
  • Kinematics, dynamics and identification
  • Vision, sensing and perception
  • Mapping and navigation
  • Planning and decision making
  • Locomotion and control

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 4357 KiB  
Article
Improved Dynamic Window Approach for Unmanned Surface Vehicles’ Local Path Planning Considering the Impact of Environmental Factors
by Zhenyu Wang, Yan Liang, Changwei Gong, Yichang Zhou, Cen Zeng and Songli Zhu
Sensors 2022, 22(14), 5181; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s22145181 - 11 Jul 2022
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 1979
Abstract
The aim of local path planning for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) is to avoid unknown dynamic or static obstacles. However, current relative studies have not fully considered the impact of ocean environmental factors which significantly increase the control difficulty and collision risk of [...] Read more.
The aim of local path planning for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) is to avoid unknown dynamic or static obstacles. However, current relative studies have not fully considered the impact of ocean environmental factors which significantly increase the control difficulty and collision risk of USVs. Therefore, this work studies two ocean environmental factors, namely, wave and current, given that they both have a significant impact on USVs. Furthermore, we redesign a kinematic model of an USV and the evaluation function of a classical and practical local path planning method based on the dynamic window approach (DWA). As shown by the results of the simulations, the path length was impacted mainly by the intensity of the environmental load and slightly by the direction of the environmental load, but the navigation time was significantly influenced by both. Taking the situation in still water as a benchmark in terms of the intensity and direction of the environmental factors, the maximum change rates of the path length were 8.6% and 0.6%, respectively, but the maximum change rates of the navigating time were 17.9% and 25.6%, separately. In addition, the average calculation time of each cycle was only 0.0418 s, and the longest time did not exceed the simulation time corresponding to a single cycle of 0.1 s. This method has proven to be a good candidate for real-time local path planning of USVs since it systematically considers the impact of waves and currents on the navigation of USVs, and thus ensures that USVs can adjust to the planned path in time and avoid obstacles when navigating in the real ocean environment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontier Research in Unmanned Underwater Vehicles)
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13 pages, 3692 KiB  
Article
Design and Depth Control of a Buoyancy-Driven Profiling Float
by Yulin Bai, Rui Hu, Yuanbo Bi, Chunhu Liu, Zheng Zeng and Lian Lian
Sensors 2022, 22(7), 2505; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s22072505 - 25 Mar 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2492
Abstract
This paper presents the design and fabrication of a profiling float primarily used for thermocline observations and tracking, with an emphasis on depth control performance. The proposed float consists of a frame-type electronic chamber and a variable buoyancy system (VBS) actuator chamber. Components [...] Read more.
This paper presents the design and fabrication of a profiling float primarily used for thermocline observations and tracking, with an emphasis on depth control performance. The proposed float consists of a frame-type electronic chamber and a variable buoyancy system (VBS) actuator chamber. Components or sensors can be added or removed according to specific requirements. All components were off the shelf, which lowered the cost of the float. In addition, a segment PD control method is introduced. Simulink results showed that there was no need to change any parameter when carrying out tasks at different depths. This method is superior to the traditional PD control and sliding mode control (SMC). In the process of diving, the speed could be well controlled to less than 0.2 m/s. We completed depth determination and control method validation in Qiandao Lake. The final results were consistent with the simulation results, and the maximum depth retention error was less than 0.3 m. Field tests also demonstrated that the prototype float can be used for thermocline observations in the upper layer of seawater or lake water. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontier Research in Unmanned Underwater Vehicles)
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15 pages, 6832 KiB  
Article
Design and Development of an Autonomous Underwater Helicopter for Ecological Observation of Coral Reefs
by Jing Zhou, Nanxi Zhou, Yuchao Che, Jian Gao, Liming Zhao, Haocai Huang and Ying Chen
Sensors 2022, 22(5), 1770; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s22051770 - 24 Feb 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1701
Abstract
Real-time status monitoring is an important prerequisite for coral reef ecological protection. Existing equipment does not provide an ocean observation platform with adequate mobility and efficiency. This paper describes the design considerations of a proposed autonomous underwater helicopter (AUH) dedicated for ecological observation [...] Read more.
Real-time status monitoring is an important prerequisite for coral reef ecological protection. Existing equipment does not provide an ocean observation platform with adequate mobility and efficiency. This paper describes the design considerations of a proposed autonomous underwater helicopter (AUH) dedicated for ecological observation of coral reefs, including the system architecture, electronic devices, sensors and actuators, and explains the path control algorithm and controller to follow a specific path for ocean exploration. The structure and dynamic model of the AUH are first introduced, and then the corresponding simplification is made for motion analysis. Furthermore, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation is carried out to evaluate the dynamic performance of the AUH. Fuzzy-PID control algorithm is utilized to achieve a good antidisturbance effect. In order to validate the performance of the proposed underwater vehicle, a field test was performed, and results confirmed the feasibility of the proposed prototype. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontier Research in Unmanned Underwater Vehicles)
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