École Nationale Supérieure de
Techniques Avancées

Abstract

Underwater robotics is a multidisciplinary field by excellence, which requires different skills, from integration of sensors to the implementation of behaviors performed by the robot, and the processing and use of information gathered. This report, which is the result of four-month internship within the robotic team of ENSTA Bretagne, proposes a control architecture for robots from the CISCREA company. The objective is to program those robots so that they run autonomously, monitoring a piece of water, detecting and investigating intruders. This document describes the hardware architecture of the robots, and extensions implemented to broaden the range of possible missions. The implementation of a reactive control architecture, based on the exchange of information between threads through a structure of shared variables, commonly called Blackboard, is the main part of this work. Threads implement the necessary features localization, regulation, ...) and behaviors of the robot (random patrol, detection and investigation of intruders). Hardware changes and control software have been tested on several occasions in a pool or outdoor environment, and allowed to achieve the objective of the work, but also to compete at the European competition of underwater robotics SAUC-E. The report is completed by an introduction to cooperative robotics and its possible applications to naval mine countermeasures.