G500 Tested in Cala Joncols (Roses - Girona)

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 08:01:17 +0200

On July the 26th the Navigation Dataset for the Navigation WP of the TRIDENT EU project was collected in Cala Joncols in Roses, Girona. During the morning we prepared and tested all the equipment in the harbour. Next we went to Cala Joncols were we tested different trajectories with the vehicle while tracking it with the USBL from an small boat. Staff from the Centre d’Inmersio at Rosas (CIR) helped to transport and deploy the equipment. The day was very rainy, but you know, this is an underwater robot so rain is not an excuse to stay at home ;-).

RAUVI project will be presented in the Campus Bot Stage at the Campus Party.

Fri, 1 Jul 2011 09:51:10 +0200

On July the 14th, the last advances in autonomous underwater intervention systems (AUVs with robotic arms) will be presente at the CampusBot within the Campus Party in Valencia. The talk will be given in the amazing Agora building at the Arts and Science city. More info.

TRIDENT 1Y Review was held at UdG - CIRS

Mon, 9 May 2011 16:17:33 +0200

In March the 5th 2011, the first year review meeting of the TRIDENT project was held at CIRS in Girona. During the day, the project coordinator presented an overview of TRIDENT status of research. Then the overview of the progress report for all the WP was presented and complemented with several demonstrations:
Demo 1: G500 AUV performed a survey in the water tank. During navigation the AUV gathered images of the bottom which was covered with a digital image of a real seafloor.
Demo 2: Image mosaicing Techniques were shown in action using MATLAB software an a data-set recorded in the water tank.
Demo 3: Visual Dead reckoning was shown in action usign C++ (ROS compatible) code working on the recorded imagery.
Demo 4: Object recognition and target tracking software was shown in action C++ (ROS compatible) code working on the recorded imagery.
Demo 4: G500 equipped with a CSIP electrical arm perfomed an autonomous internvention hooking a black box mockup from the bottom of the water tank.
Demo 5: A model of the three fingered hand build with rapid prototyping was shown
Demo 6: A video showing range only navigation, USBL navigation, bottom following, coordinated path following and homing controllerswas presented.
Demo 7: A ROS simulation of the intelligent control architecture of the system was shown in action.
It was a great day, where great results where shown. TRIDENT is becoming in a fascinating project ;-).

Autonomous Underwater Object Recovery Demonstrated at CIRS

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 17:32:15 +0100

During this second week of March the integration experiments of the RAUVI spanish funded project have been carried out at CIRS. The GIRONA500 AUV designed and developed by the UdG team has been endowed with the ECA-CSIP robotic arm and its control system designed and developed by the UJI team and the computer vision system designed and developed by the UIB team to setup an integrated vision based controlled I-AUV.
At the sea floor of the CIRS water tank, a digital image of a real sea floor was installed and a mockup of a black box was through to an unknown place in the water tank.
The experiment was divided in two phases:
SURVEY PHASE: The robot has been programmed to follow a grid shaped trajectory approximately at 1 meter altitude from the bottom. While navigating, the robot recorded navigation data as well as images grabbed from the seafloor. With these images, a photomosaic of the seafloor was built and the position of the black box was discovered.
INTERVENTION PHASE: Next, the robot was launched again being automatically guided to the pre-programmed position held by black box. There, the robot executed station keeping with visual feed back from the target object. While doing station keeping, the arm was able to autonomously hook the object. This phase was repeated several times exhibiting a very good repeatability.

G500 takes its first bath

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 11:35:32 +0100

On February the 17th G500 took its first bath. Still the ballast weights have to be placed in the optimal configuration and as well as the thrusters should be aligned with the gravity center. So a lot of work still has to be done. But it is alive ;-).
Now we are working on theDVL/FOG navigation as well as basic control methods for way point guidance, before the software/hardware integration to be carry out with UJI and UIB teams in 2 weeks time.