PROJECT TITLE :

Testing the Waters: Design of Replicable Experiments for Performance Assessment of Marine Robotic Platforms

ABSTRACT:

Robotics is becoming half of our daily life through home automation (called domotic) and assistive applications that are taking place in habitations, up to industrial and repair employments. With this strict cooperation between humans and robots, it is of absolute necessity to assess the robotic systems' capabilities and performance to make sure safety and reliability in line with actual and vital criteria and parameters. Within this context, there are delays in technology transfer from research frameworks toward actual applicative scenarios. These delays are caused by the dearth of methodologies and standardized procedures for the experiment execution and result comparison. A additional restraint to the needed process of technology transfer is because of the lack to perceive the actual capabilities of the systems and to bear in mind and assured (or not) about what they will be realistically employed for. In several cases, this may additionally turn into the inability to outline specific laws for the utilization of robotic platforms to adjust to the current laws. This is often the case for marine robotics. Tethered vehicles [e.g., remotely operated vehicles (ROVs)] are thought-about half of the vessel equipment once they are operated from a ship (as a result of of the physical connection provided by the cable). Conversely, whenever autonomous systems, like unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) or autonomous underwater vehicles are commanded through an acoustic or Wi-Fi/radio communication link, they're thought of as navigating platforms and are subject to the regulation in force. For the industrial employment of those vehicles, it is then necessary to strongly assess the vehicle's capabilities in an exceedingly standardized means, to ensure the operating performance and evaluate limitations of the target system.