U-Ranger - An Unmanned Surface Vehicle for surface and underwater missions

摘要

The purpose of the paper is to describe the new U-Ranger Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) developed by Calzoni S.r.l.. It is the successor of a Mine Countermeasure USV which control system has been extensively tested. The new vehicle is made fore Maritime Security missions and is characterized by a unique capability to operate in surface and underwater missions. It can be rapidly re-configured thanks to its hoisting manipulator for the sonar, therefore exploiting the high speed required for the target reacquisition and tracking. The system can perform teleoperation and trackkeeping functions to perform the fundamental operations in harbor and ship protection. U-Ranger was successfully tested in the Harbor Protection Trials HPT08 recently held in Eckenfoerde (D) in the context of an Integrated Protection System. The next step in the USV autonomy is the near field obstacle avoidance, which is approached with an innovative solution based on the digital processing of the infrared images from the onboard camera to detect surface obstacles.