Abstract
Recently, the needs for the development and application of marine robots are increasing as marine accidents occur frequently. However, it is very difficult to acquire the information by utilizing marine robots in the marine environment. Therefore, the needs for the researches of sensor networks which are composed of underwater, surface and aerial robots are increasing in order to acquire the information effectively as the information from heterogeneous robots has less limitation in terms of coverage and connectivity. Although various researches of the sensor network which is based on marine robots have been executed, all of the underwater, surface and aerial robots have not yet been considered in the sensor network. To solve this problem, a collaborative control method based on the acoustic information and image by the sonars of the underwater robot, the acoustic information by the sonar of the surface robot and the optical image by the camera of the static-floating aerial robot is proposed. To verify the performance of the proposed method, the collaborative control of a MUR(Micro Underwater Robot) with an OAS(Obstacle Avoidance Sonar) and a SSS(Side Scan Sonar), a MSR(Micro Surface Robot) with an OAS and a BMAR(Balloon-based Micro Aerial Robot) with a camera are executed. The test results show the possibility of real applications and the need for additional studies.
