Trajectory Planning and Control of Bathy-drone: A Drone Towing a Boat equipped with Sonar for Bathymetry Mapping
Andres Pulido, Antonio L. Diaz, Andrew E. Ortega, Peter Ifju, Jane Shin · AIAA SCITECH 2023 Forum · 2023
View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2023-1811.vid This paper considers a trajectory planning and control problem for a drone that tows an unpowered boat via a tether. The system, named Bathy-drone, is tasked with underwater bathymetry mapping. The boat equipped with a side-scan sonar sensor that can scan seafloor and obtain side-scan sonar imagery. Because the sonar vessel is unpowered, this platform is able to scan shallow water environment that other boats with propulsion system cannot navigate. However, because the sensing unit is dragged through a tether, which can be taut or loose, relative configurations and the delayed dynamics of the vessel must be incorporated in the planning and control algorithm because the vessel trajectory does not coincide with the drone trajectory. This paper proposes a trajectory planning and control approach for a drone that can maneuver a tethered vessel such that the sensor field-of-view scans the entire given region of interest considering the delayed dynamics of a tethered system by applying a concept of rapidly-exploring random trees (RRT). The proposed trajectory planning and control approach was be developed by a Gazebo Simulator and demonstrated by experiments on a retention pond in Citra, FL