Month: November 2023

PhD Defense Juliette Drupt

The Doctoral Studies Office is pleased to inform you that

Ms Juliette DRUPT

Doctoral student at the COSMER laboratory, part of the Doctoral School 548 “Mer & Sciences” (France)

will submit her thesis in order to obtain the degree of Doctor

under the supervision of

Vincent HUGEL,Professor, University of Toulon (France), Thesis Director

&

Mme Claire DUNE, Maitre de conférences, Université de Toulon (France), Thesis co-supervisor

Andrew COMPORT, Research Fellow, CNRS (France), Thesis co-supervisor

Discipline: Automatics, Signal, Productics, Robotics

on the theme

“Localization of an underwater robot chain“.

Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.

At Université de Toulon – Campus La Garde – Bâtiment M – Amphi M.01

before a jury composed of :

  1. David FILLIAT, Professeur des Universités, ENSTA Paris (France), Rapporteur,
  2. Luc JAULIN, Professeur des Universités, ENSTA Bretagne (France), rapporteur,
  3. Vincent CREUZE, Professeur des Universités, Université de Montpellier (France), Examinateur,
  4. Juan TARDOS, Professeur, Université de Saragosse (Espagne), Examinateur,
  5. Maxime FERRERA, Docteur, ingénieur, IFREMER (France), Examinateur,
  6. Mme Claire DUNE, Maître de Conférences, Université de Toulon (France), co-encadrante de thèse
  7. Andrew COMPORT, Chargé de Recherches HDR, CNRS-I3S (France), Co-encadrant de thèse
  8. Vincent HUGEL, Professeur des Universités, Université de Toulon (France), Directeur de thèse

Abstract

Because real-time wireless communications are impossible underwater, underwater remotely operated vehicles (ROVs)  are connected to a surface station by a physical link. Recent works investigate limiting the mechanical effects exerted by this cable by using intermediary ROVs  to control its shape.  This configuration is called an underwater robot chain and is the focus of the current thesis, which investigates its self-localization using embedded sensors.

While ROV localization with respect to its environment can be estimated from its embedded sensors, the cable can be taken as an advantage to localize the ROV at its end point given a knowledge of the cable’s 3D state. Two complementary approaches are studied: the proprioceptive localization of the chain based on an estimation of the 3D state of its cable parts using inertial measurements, and exteroceptive, multi-agent localization with respect to the environment using visual simultaneous localization and mapping techniques.

Keywords: underwater robotics, deformable objects, VSLAM.