Development of a Conical Laser Light-Sectioning Method for Navigation of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles through Pipelines

摘要

Pipelines are an inevitable part of our life and their inspection and maintenance is vital for their trouble free service. This paper presents the development of a conical laser based navigation sensor, which wall enable an autonomous underwater vehicle, AUV, to swim through the center of a pipeline for inspection. The proposeed sensor can predict the relative position and orientation of a vehicle inside pipelines with 4 degrees of freedom by inspecting the feattures of a conical laser image. The sensor offers non-contact measurement and can be used for non-destructive testing of pipeline interior. The performance of the proposed sensor is verified through laboratory based experiments and its effectiveness in controlling an AUV is demonstrated through control simulations.