Aqua-Quad - solar powered, long endurance, hybrid mobile vehicle for persistent surface and underwater reconnaissance, part II - onboard intelligence

Authors:
Open Access
Publisher website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The paper describes the control system development of a novel hybrid autonomous vehicle - Aqua-Quad, a Multi-Rotor Vertical Take Off and Landing aircraft with environmentally hardened electronics, exchangeable sensor suite, communication links, and a solar recharge system. The key objective of this multi-modal autonomous system is to enable energy-aware ultra-long endurance autonomy to facilitate near real-time capture and transition of information from the undersea domain to the air and further to the ground. The key benefit of this rapid in-situ data delivery is to enable timely and efficient decision making that, in turn, improves the collective efficiency of the Aqua-Quad as a system. Each individual vehicle is designed to have mission-relevant sensors and sufficient computational power to reduce the false alarm rate, and navigate in open seas in an energy-optimal manner by optimizing its route while either in search of targets or when tracking them. Higher operational efficiency is envisioned when a flock of Aqua-Quads operates cooperatively. The paper focuses on the design of energy-optimal path planning for a single vehicle in the presence of ocean currents. A novel modification of rapidly exploring random tree algorithm is developed to fully utilize the energy savings provided by the transportation mechanism of ocean flows.

This publication has 16 references indexed in Scilit: